Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans don’t trust women.

No Justins, No Peace

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I was promised a recession.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Let there be snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I really should read my own blog.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Friday/Saturday, April 3/4

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Friday/Saturday, April 3/4

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Some potentially hopeful news out of Europe, though…


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42Comments

  1. 1.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    The Evansville METS city bus system is now limiting buses to 9 passengers + driver.

    They’ll stop and tell you why you can’t board if 9 people are already riding.

    I’ll be a hardship as I don’t have a car, but it’s good that they’re taking this seriously.

  2. 2.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    Duh..I didn’t notice the “International” in the title and thought WP ate my first post.
    Oops. ?

  3. 3.

    Ohio Mom

    Darrin: I’m guessing that depending on where a rider lives, they might not ever be able to board a bus. At least he drivers are getting to keep their jobs and pay.

  4. 4.

    Ten Bears

    Not too far off topic, but a question for vote for mail advocates (I’ve been voting by mail in Oregon for years, though it has been my habit to deliver the ballot to the big steel box at the county clerk’s office):

    By all accounts our constitutionally mandated Postal Service will breathe its last breath sometime in June. How are you going to mail all those ballots if there’s no postal service?

    What else are they getting away with?

  6. 6.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Bank of America has revealed the game on PPP SBA money through sheer thuggery. Rather than simply limiting processing services to existing customers (irritating, yet rational), it has had a policy of limiting processing to existing business customers with open lines of credit at BoA. This helps guarantee continued payment of obligations to them.

    Also, they managed to devour 22B of the 350B pot with about 85000 applications – a monstrous burn rate, and I’m wondering just how many recipients are subsidiaries of larger organizations.

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    So Trump is stockpiling medical supplies to broker deals with other countries and letting US citizens die.

    Yeah, that makes Current Twisted Republican sense.

    And a shoutout to central casting for this dystopian movie we’re in: the deranged tyrant (Trump) and Wormtongue (Kushner) role are incredibly done. Looks like this series will get a renewal!

  9. 9.

    YY_Sima Qian

    After two weeks in the hospital, and further two weeks of self-imposed quarantine, I am finally home today. I have not seen my 13 months old daughter for a month, other than video chats. She has grown so much, especially mentally! When I went to the hospital, she was a big baby, now she is a little kid.

    Today is Tomb Sweeping Festival in China (and the Chinese cultural-sphere). Normally the cemeteries would be packed with mourners. Today, the Chinese government is restricting access to cemeteries, limited reservation only. The purpose is two fold: to prevent overcrowding, and to prevent social unrest from the grieving families, especially in Wuhan. As I was transferring from one residential compound to another, there are a austerity a few more neighborhood committee workers and community volunteers manning the entrances, questioning everyone, probably to make sure we are not going to cemeteries without reservations.

    The entire country also stopped at 10 AM, for three minutes of silence to mourn those who died from the epidemic, with sirens and horns blaring. With the restricted activities for this Tomb Sweeping Festival, the CCP regime wanted an outlet for the population’s anguish and grief, and shift them away from the regime itself. Of course, one could argue that channeling national grief is one of the jobs of national leadership.

  10. 10.

    Richard Guhl

    The official death toll underestimates the actual total. Anecdotal evidence out of Wuhan says the number of cremations performed far exceeds the official number. Newspapers in Italy and Spain have detected excess deaths beyond those listed as caused by COVID-19.
    Were they all COVID deaths?
    Probably not. Many were likely due to other causes of patients who couldn’t get the treatment they otherwise would have.

  11. 11.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    @Ohio Mom:

     Darrin: I’m guessing that depending on where a rider lives, they might not ever be able to board a bus. At least he drivers are getting to keep their jobs and pay.

    Correct.
    Like I said, it will be a hardship for people like me who depend on the bus, but it’s certainly one I can live with.

    The bus system in Indianapolis not only limits the number of riders, you have to enter/exit using the rear door and eliminated fares for the duration so there’s no close interaction with the driver.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    Last nights moves by trump assures him access to the 500 billion and oversight of the entire package.  Glenn Fine was pushed aside at DOJ also.

  14. 14.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Andy Beshear is speaking bluntly about the economy needing to be rebuilt (as opposed to just a restoration of the old status quo, back to normal thing). Are America’s hyperbolically greedy, needy, demanding conservative olds up to that challenge? Can they put aside whining about bootstraps, their fixed incomes, property tax munnies, COLA adjustments and lazy welfare moochers long enough to do some repayment to all the younger people who have sacrificed their livelihoods, mental health and economic futures for them?

    I have my doubts, and want to slap the tapioca spoon out of many a grannie’s hand, given what my Facebook feed is revealing.

  19. 19.

    bemused

    I’ve been looking at the free patterns to make face masks. The no sew face mask video using a hankie or bandanna was clever. The masks using elastic hair ties to hook on your ears did not look comfortable and then I thought of the fold over ribbon that I have used to make hair ties. I have a lot of the fold over ribbon and a couple of souvenir bandannas to experiment.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @bemused:The masks using elastic hair ties to hook on your eyes did not look comfortable

    How does that work? With fishhooks? That would be uncomfortable!

  21. 21.

    La Nonna

    Luckily here in Italy, we honor our elders, devastated that they have for the most part borne the brunt of the covid-19 pandemic, and are doing the best we can to avoid spreading the virus.  Note that most retirees in our part of Puglia live reasonably on 800 eu per month…sure, no extravagant homes, no expensive travel, lots of raising our own food and helping out with childcare.  Get off whatever FB feed, someone sounds like a spoiled brat.

  23. 23.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Barbara:

    As Hans Landa would say, “that’s a BINGO!”

    Well, just one of them, anyway. There’s also a great deal of smug fuckery about large cities, undocumented aliens, savings rates, welfare and tax munnies, all from people who’ve never sacrificed Jack shit for anybody.

  24. 24.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @La Nonna:

    You need to familiarize yourself with the wisdom and bleating of homo geriatricus americanus. It is a shocker.

  29. 29.

    leeleeFL

    I need to say this in the Company of people I trust.  When we come out on the other side of this mess, I hope we have not lost 200,000 or more fellow Citizens.  I hope tRump and his unRoyal vermin are pariahs even among their own, and that our Democracy is restored to its original, imperfect genesis so we can actually build on it instead of excavate to rebuild.

    I find myself in quiet reflection quite often lately as I have been furloughed and was off any way cause DeSantis asked us Olds to stay home last week.  My Daughter is still working, so I am with a sleeping 12 year old many times. Trying for some reason to fix my home in a more art/craft usable configuration.  Honestly, it feels little like those deck chairs on the Titanic….but I am ever an optimist.  This time makes me think I may not work so much when it’s over.  More time for creativity sounds better every minute.

    OT, is there a source for transcripts of the WH pressers?  I will no longer listen to that venal criminal.  BTW-as a born Brooklyn-ite, I beg you not to call him a Mafia Mob-Boss wannabe.  Those ppl had class,  comparatively.

    Thanks for listening

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Governor Beshear is so right about rebuilding the economy in a new way. I am guardedly optimistic that there will be a new administration and congress next year that will pass a smart Green New Deal. Clean power, a smart grid, and energy conservation on a large scale can be potent generators of jobs and economic growth. The technologies for clean power and a smart grid are already here and can be scaled up. Americorps is still around; it can be expanded quickly and we can put people to work weatherproofing every poor family’s home in America, and upgrade plumbing and put solar panels on roofs. These are job skills that will be in demand once the private economy grows.

  32. 32.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @satby: I call them every couple of days. They live in the outskirts of a small town a couple of hours from the nearest decent sized city. Very low population density, and their compound is pretty open.  Why few pedestrians out. (Not a pedestrian or cyclist friendly area.) The Walmart in the area is pretty deserted most of the time. They only venture out once a week for grocery, and always wear hats and gloves, and now masks, and use the self-checkout station. They also have enough non-perishable food to last three to four weeks if they need to stay inside for that long. They are saving the supplies for the peak of the epidemic.

  33. 33.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Barbara: Thank you for the kind thoughts! Honestly, I thought living in Wuhan through the epidemic would give me all kinds of unique stories to tell. Unfortunately, it will not be unique at all, and not even the worst experience…

  37. 37.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Fair Economist: All they need is a supply of extra bus drivers willing to risk their health and their lives coming into contact with possible COVID-19 sufferers rather than sheltering at home.

  38. 38.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    First, it’s hot and humid in Singapore so if they are seeing an uptick, this doesn’t bode well for our summer.

    This guy was stupid enough to believe this?  Did he not notice the virus is spreading in countries in the southern hemisphere, were it is literally summer right now? The fraking source of the “summer stops virus” myth is Donald Dumass himself.

  39. 39.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Nigeria’s elite are trapped by coronavirus and now exposed to the squalid hospitals they could previously avoid

    Having talked to Africans on line I am going to bet right now these rich Nigerians are telling themselves this is all America’s fault, because America didn’t stop the virus, so they can’t just jet off on a private plane to an American hospital now when they get sick.

  42. 42.

    Emma

    Re: the Joe Wiesenthal tweet, it’s not a lockdown, it’s a stay-home order a la Washington and California. The essential services apparently include hairdressers, but only for hair-cutting *face-palm* The government certainly has the capability to do an actual lockdown, though.

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