I live in NYC, I commute to work on a crowded subway every day, and I keep hearing someone at the back of my office coughing.
It gets me thinking. One part of me feels a sense of Schadenfreude at what’s happening now. I can’t help it, it’s the political junkie in me, even though I’m as aware as anyone of the huge human and economic costs.
Why can’t Trump’s presidency get wrecked without all the collateral damage? Why can’t he, like, nuke the North Pole or something?
Because the Trumpaloons wouldn’t notice and would continue to worship him. The collateral damage, that will included Cult45 is what it will take to get their attention. They won’t vote against him, but may stay home.
Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11
This is your daily reminder that it took Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health Emergency
It began in April of ‘09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died
Where was the media hysteria then?
Gerry Doyle
@mgerrydoyle
swine flu was declared a public health emergency at the end of april 2009, and again, this fact is available on wikipedia
Gerry Doyle
@mgerrydoyle
the disinformation is clumsy but it’s permeating one side of the political spectrum like, uh… a virus
A looming shortage in lab materials is threatening to delay coronavirus test results and cause officials to undercount the number of Americans with the virus.
Steve Kornacki
@SteveKornacki
There are still ~1 million uncounted votes in CA, so this number will rise, but so far Dem primary/caucus turnout is up about 26% compared to 2016
One part of me feels a sense of Schadenfreude at what’s happening now. I can’t help it, it’s the political junkie in me, even though I’m as aware as anyone of the huge human and economic costs.
This has been on my mind lately. Here’s what I’m thinking:
– With my political fellow travelers, we disagree on the means to shared ends;
– With my political opponents, we disagree on the ends, but those ends do not diverge to an extreme degree, and we do share enough common ground that we agree as to what constitutes acceptable means;
– With my political enemies, we disagree profoundly. It is no longer a question of better and worse, but of good and bad, if not good and evil. If my enemy’s plans do not lead to horrible results, I cannot help but question my own assumptions. But when those horrible results actually come to fruition, I see that intellectually and morally, I have been vindicated. Any such victory must necessarily be bitter sweet if one was aiming at general happiness and prosperity.
A looming shortage in lab materials is threatening to delay coronavirus test results and cause officials to undercount the number of Americans with the virus.
If trump can’t get his rosy numbers one way, he’ll get them another.
@OzarkHillbilly: Those of us of a certain age remember how Gerald Ford got hammered publicly — mostly by the right — for taking Swine Flu seriously in 1976 and trying to mass-vaccinate the population.
Is there such a thing as a perfect murder? In real life, the answer is probably yes, though how would we know about it? Perfection demands that the murder be unsolvable, maybe even unrecorded – a victim disappearing off the face of the earth, a body never found, a killer never caught. In our world of forensic science and DNA evidence, the perfect murder must be as rare as a reclusive celebrity.
If the author had ever talked to a big city homicide detective he’d know they are as common as hound’s teeth.
The pressure to be positive has never been greater. Cultural forces have whipped up a frenzied pursuit of happiness, spawning billion-dollar book sales, a cottage industry in self-help and plastering inspirational quotes all over the internet.
Now you can hire a happiness expert, undertake training in ‘mindfulness’, or seek inner satisfaction via an app. The US army currently trains its soldiers – over a million people – in positive psychology and optimism is taught in UK schools. Meanwhile the ‘happiness index’ has become an indicator of national wellbeing to rival GDP.
The truth is, pondering the worst has some clear advantages. Cranks may be superior negotiators, more discerning decision-makers and cut their risk of having a heart attack. Cynics can expect more stable marriages, higher earnings and longer lives – though, of course, they’ll anticipate the opposite.
Good moods on the other hand come with substantial risks – sapping your drive, dimming attention to detail and making you simultaneously gullible and selfish. Positivity is also known to encourage binge drinking, overeating and unsafe sex.
@Tyrell (from yesterday’s sick leave post): Aha! So you were always one of the hogs sloppin’ at the public trough! That explains a lot. Now we know why you think Medicare is so unfair and low quality coverage and want to try to buy a better policy.
@OzarkHillbilly: Decades ago I saw an interview with a homicide detective who was asked exactly that, if he’d ever seen a perfect murder. He replied, ‘How would I know?’ A perfect murder would not only be unsolved, it would be unrecognized.
@Kit: Opponents and enemies are people whose thinking is furthest from your own, whatever the issue or side you’re on. If you don’t understand them, you’re the last one who should be putting them into one group or another.
Also, you have no idea how the public will respond to a crisis. There’s no guarantee they’ll come over to your side. The only thing you can be sure of: people are suffering.
For those who have been handwringing about democratic turnout:
In Michigan, Sanders only fell 20K short of his 2016 vote total (went from ~ 599K to ~ 577K). Biden increased Hillary's 2016 vote from ~ 582K to ~ 839K. Some of that was increased turnout by Democrats. Some of it was independents, Republicans and ex-Republicans voting for Biden.— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 11, 2020
Also the National Review weighs in on the President’s handling of COVID-19 to date. The results are not pretty:
“The failures of leadership at the top, however, show no sign of being corrected. In a serious public-health crisis, the public has the right to expect the government’s chief executive to lead in a number of crucial ways: by prioritizing the problem properly, by deferring to subject-matter experts when appropriate while making key decisions in informed and sensible ways, by providing honest and careful information to the country, by calming fears and setting expectations, and by addressing mistakes and setbacks.
Trump so far hasn’t passed muster on any of these metrics. He resisted making the response to the epidemic a priority for as long as he could — refusing briefings, downplaying the problem, and wasting precious time. He has failed to properly empower his subordinates and refused to trust the information they provided him — often offering up unsubstantiated claims and figures from cable television instead. He has spoken about the crisis in crude political and personal terms. He has stood in the way of public understanding of the plausible course of the epidemic, trafficking instead in dismissive clichés. He has denied his administration’s missteps, making it more difficult to address them.”
NYT has a good, long, article on the Russia-Saudi oil fight.
Amid the tumult, it was unclear which country might emerge the winner of the dispute in the long run, though both have so far been damaged by the price fall.
But the breakup was a clear victory for one close ally of Mr. Putin’s, Igor I. Sechin, the head of Russia’s biggest oil company, Rosneft. It was also a coup for nationalist-minded Russian economists intent on punishing the United States, no matter what the cost to Russia.
…
The (OPEC proposed) cuts are aimed at putting a floor under oil prices, but Mr. Sechin argued that efforts to keep oil prices high by limiting output only spurred shale oil production in the United States. This, he said on Sunday, was “pointless.”
…
(Russian) State television stations blamed Saudi Arabia for the ruble collapse and offered as solace expert commentary that the United States and Saudi Arabia would ultimately suffer more. “At these prices, by year’s end shale oil companies will fall apart,” state Channel 1 reported.
The article notes that Sechin, whose relationship with Putin is even deeper than the article notes, wants to destroy the American frackers. The author also quotes a noted European economist saying they’ll only go into hibernation. (Or be bought out. The oil, after all, is still there.)
It should also be noted that whatever the short term results, every ton of oil we burn is a long term defeat for everyone.
Why can’t Trump’s presidency get wrecked without all the collateral damage?
Because a saddening number of people cannot understand fire is hot until they are burned, sometimes repeatedly. Even now, we see FOX dismissing COVID-19 deaths as “the olds” being natural targets despite the fact that’s who their target demographic is. The misinformation they spread can and will kill some of their viewers….. and the viewers are still lapping it up. They’re pushing payroll taxes cuts as a solution to this crisis like $10 more per check in your pocket will magically make hand sanitizer show up on empty shelves and your cough go away when you catch it from ignorant people who think this is NBD. Until it hits them where it hurts, there will be no change.
It’s not fair everyone has to suffer for Cult45’s stupidity. However, the only way you’re going start cracking that brainwashing is to let them stick their hand into the flames and make sure you’ve got enough burn gel to go around.
That’s my point. You can’t. You don’t understand them well enough.
I think you’re conflating two different senses of “furthest from”. I understand (e.g.) Federalist Society members perfectly. I also oppose everything they stand for. I also understand genuine fascists pretty well, and consider them to be evil. It is simply not true that it is impossible to understand people you disagree with completely.
(There is an apt quotation from Gandalf that I will manfully refrain from making.)
Trump has realized how bad he is fuqing up, and so now he has classified all Covid-19 deliberations. Which, of course, is another fuq up in his management of this “crisis”.
If you don’t understand by now why public recommendations to deal with the crisis have to be kept secret, your vote is lost to the stable moron of the unmatched folly anyway.
@Kit: Any person has trouble understanding the thinking of someone they disagree with. The Right doesn’t understand the Left, the Left doesn’t understand the Right, Trek people don’t understand Star Wars fans. The more important something is to a person, the more central it is to his thinking, the worse he’s going to be at understanding someone who thinks differently.
Not to say that everyone who thinks differently on an issue thinks the same way. Just, the assumptions and nuances that are different among them are going to be easier for them to notice than for someone opposed to them.
Any person has trouble understanding the thinking of someone they disagree with.
No offense, but I think you may be conflating “understanding” with “agreeing.”
There are whole fields dedicated to understandings people you don’t agree with. See everything from international relations to therapy to basic business negotiation.
Also the National Review weighs in on the President’s handling of COVID-19
This is one of the rare times lately I’ve seen “Periodical X weighs in” used correctly. This was indeed a statement from The Editors rather than the take of a single columnist at said periodical.
I don’t know why I continue to be astonished, but Reuters is reporting that the White House has chosen to classify COVID-19 deliberations, which not only is limiting the amount of information coming *out* of the administration on this, but because a lot of disease experts don’t have security clearances, it’s limiting the amount of expert contribution to the deliberations/discussions.
The incredible incompetence of this administration continues to be jaw-dropping.
If the dumbsh*ts on the right make claims about H1N1 not being managed well they are wrong. I lived through it and it is considered one of the more successful responses to a new strain of flu. If anyone on the right is open to evidence (LOLOLOLOLOL), ok I nearly peed myself after I wrote that. here is a link to a contemporary account, May 1st that year, talking about the response. Link follows. Also, should note that the total number of deaths from H1N1 was pretty low. (I hate going over this again and again, ut H1N1 was first found in the spring of 2009. We began to prepare for it but the warm weather really did cause it to peter out, this was a flu virus after all. It then returned that fall but most of us were well prepared. It ended up not being very virulent. It was not officially called a pandemic for a while not because we weren’t prepared but because not many people were dying from it and not as many people as we thought even got the disease.
In the completely inane department, we have this from CNBC:
A top U.S. health official said the worst is yet to come with a coronavirus outbreak that has already infected more than 1,000 people across the nation.
Ya think? Seriously? Is there anyone in the country who was thinking “I bet this whole coronavirus thing has peaked”, prior to hearing from this official or reading CNBC’s account?
Any person has trouble understanding the thinking of someone they disagree with.
Completely understanding? I’ll give you that. But but “not understanding at all”? I’ll have to disagree. It’s the heart of real politics, debate, business, and so many other activities.
Not to say that everyone who thinks differently on an issue thinks the same way. Just, the assumptions and nuances that are different among them are going to be easier for them to notice than for someone opposed to them.
I think that’s a reasonable point, but it strikes me more as just how opaque motivations are, even to oneself. Goals are easier to understand, I think, especially when filtered through political parties. There are plenty of factors that lead me to my position on, say, immigration: some rational, some more of a deep-seated feeling, and some based on how I’m digesting my last meal. But in the end I must support a political party advocating for some particular position. I can understand and judge those positions, as well as the means used to implement those positions.
I’ll also add that while strong passions get in the way of mutual comprehension, they are also likely to show just how far apart people are in basic outlook. Fists fly when people come to the limits of their understanding.
@Kathy:..Next time, I’ll count to ten before posting.
There were a few times that my ex and I consulted with relationship counselors (we never got married the 16 years that we lived together) during our cohabitation.
One of the complaints she had was that I interrupted her when she was talking to me and she brought it up early in our sessions.
“I try to be aware of that.” I told the shrink.
“I have tried to stop doing that. In fact when ever she is talking and she pauses I silently count to ten before I say anything so I don’t interrupt her.”
(I never told her I did that. She is hearing this from me for the first time.)
“So how does that work?”
“I never get to ten before she starts talking again.”
“The U.S. has fewer doctors per person and fewer hospital beds per person than Italy”, said [Dr. Celine] Gounder, a clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at New York University.
For the first time, the World Health Organization called the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, a pandemic. Meanwhile, the United States now has more than 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus — but testing in the country is still ramping up, meaning that number could continue to climb.
That number “could continue to climb” in pretty much the same way the sun “might rise tomorrow”. What the testing shortfall means is that the actual number of cases (and note that the quoted bit didn’t say “more than 1000 people who have tested positive”, it said “more than 1000 people infected”) is probably significantly higher than the number of positive tests — and that we will be tardy in spotting new cases going forward.
Was there a time in the past when the major media were smarter and more articulate than this, or was I just less aware of how bad things were?
@GaryGrumbach
The attending physician of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, Dr. Brian Monahan, briefed Senate Staff yesterday afternoon in a closed-door meeting that he expects anywhere from 70 up to 150 million people in the U.S. to contract coronavirus, two sources tell NBC
Trump, who is the leader of a country in the midst of a crisis, refuses to talk to Pelosi or Schumer.
He’s a big fat orange child with a shitty comb-over.
@Teve: Fatality rate can range from 1% where the “curve” is flatter and care is available and adequate up to 4-5% where the health care system is overwhelmed and incoming patients are triaged based on age to see who gets to breathe.
Knowing America’s health care system…I’m not reassured. At all.
Not all airlines reducing capacity and cancelling flights make the news.
Today I had to book a ticket for a coworker for Ciudad del Carmen. That’s pretty much Mexico’s oil capital, though it’s a dinky, small port town without any charm. Still, it used to see seven daily flights from Mexico City, sometimes more.
Today, there were two. One each on Interjet and Aeromexico.
Usually finding a ticket for same day travel there is impossible. today there was no problem. So demand is way down.
Knowing America’s health care system…I’m not reassured. At all.
Today’s news from Italy is dire: confirmed cases up 20% in one day to 12000+, deaths now outnumber recoveries, and the “active cases” growth is accelerating.
Italy is a much closer comp to the US than either China or South Korea. If I were advising the President, it would be voluntary travel and association restrictions everywhere by the end of the week, and a threat of martial law if voluntary compliance is low.
Ya think? Seriously? Is there anyone in the country who was thinking “I bet this whole coronavirus thing has peaked”, prior to hearing from this official or reading CNBC’s account?
When I see CSK opining
When Trump spouts off about what a big nothing COVID-19 is, I wonder: Do we take him seriously, or do we take him literally?
two posts later, I’m really open to the possibility that people in the country are thinking just that about the virus having peaked. The capacity for self-delusion of small groups of people in this country is almost boundless. Look at who some people voted for in 2016 (or 2012 as far as that goes).
If you want to limit the question to people who understood the issue in the first place, certainly you’re right, but randos off the street? Bound to be some. Probably lots. Fox News is the most watched, after all.
@Mikey: Is that the number of people actually catching COVID 19, or simply being exposed to it?
Given the game of Telephone that the media now so often indulges it and their tendency to always go for the more sensational description, I’m wondering if they haven’t mucked up “exposure” with “catching”…..
All “non-essential” travel is cancelled until the end of April.
All vendors have been told not to visit.
All customer visits cancelled.
Anyone who has traveled (even personal) is to remain at home until cleared.
Anyone with a cough is banned from the factory.
This on top of news this morning that we’ve been hit hard by both the tariffs and the disruption in manufacturing and shipping in China.
@grumpy realist: Julian Riou, an epidemiologist modeling the spread of the disease in China, posted this at Andrew Gelman’s blog:
Background on the epidemic: COVID-19 just passed 100,000 confirmed cases all over the world, and is expected to continue to spread. Without strong control measures or a lucky turn of events (such as a lower transmission during summer months), a significant portion of humanity is going to get infected in the next few months (Marc Lipsitch from Harvard, one of the most respected scientists of the field, suggests than 20 to 50% of all adults may become infected and pretty much everyone in the field agrees).
Trump’s concern at this point is that going further could hamper his narrative that the coronavirus is similar to the seasonal flu, said the three people familiar with the discussions.
I’ve been playing the game Pandemic on my iPad — it’s a cooperative game, but I’m not very cooperative, so I just play four roles — and even on easy mode, it is hard.
If real pandemics are anything like this game, we are totally fucked if there are four different diseases all at once.
@Kathy: They moved those engines in an effort to get better fuel efficiency. But they did not run enough test flights after they did that, or training.
I would be wary of getting in a plane that has been sitting around for over a year.
The maintenance has been very expensive: fluid changes, keeping insects and animals out, tire upkeep, keeping down the damage from snow, ice, and cold weather. and opening the planes up in hot weather.
On MSNBC Tuesday, CNBC’s Eamon Javers said the White House doesn’t think it “would end well” if Trump met with Pelosi. “It’s a tragic statement that because he’s so wounded — I mean, we’re in the middle of a national crisis, and he can’t get in a room with the speaker of the House?” host Nicole Wallace asked. “What the White House would say is, that’s Pelosi’s fault,” Javers said. “Because she ripped up his speech, she’s been tough on him, she impeached him, and therefore the president has every right to not want to be in a room with her.”
We could call Trump a pussy, but that would be an insult to pussies everywhere…
So the moron in chief goes from “Everything is fine” to blind panic and flailing wildly in one step. And his moronic Evangelical and Trump State supporters will blither along behind him.
Here’s what’s going to happen. Half the population of every country is going to get this virus. Because it affects the young much more than the old, we are going to see the most abrupt transfer of wealth and power to the (relatively) young that has occurred in recorded history. Come July or August or so there will be a real split in the population between those who have had it and say “everyone is going to get it anyway so we should lift travel restrictions, bring back crowds at sporting events, etc” and those older folks who are still terrified and hunkered down and want the restrictions to stay in place. (My wife and I are at the cusp, but I’m preparing myself that my mother and mother-in-law, at 92 and 88 respectively and not very strong, will probably not make it).
Bottom line, by September/October there will be a groundswell that it is better to just get the virus and let it play out than to continue to hunker down.
@mister bluster: At least someone is talking this seriously. The President* still doesn’t seem to. My first reaction to his Oval Office address was what was that about. He set up an Oval Office address for that? But I’m really disturbed by his comments that the disease may be serious for old people but young people don’t really need to worry. Governor Inslee was asked what the penalty was for violating the new Washington social distance rules. He replied that you might kill your grandfather. Young people may not get all that sick, but they’re STILL CARRIERS. After all this, Trump still seems to have no idea how transmission works. Nor his staff.
The President’s speech was a complete embarrassment. He is going to take the GOP down with him, as they quake in terror of the threat of a mean tweet.
The virus is now beyond containment, and hospitals are about to buckle. He did not mention testing. When “Dr.” Pence was asked if the uninsured could get free testing, he walked away from the podium.
The entire U.S. response has been purely political, including this speech. About the time Biden clinches, he’ll mutter the words “I think we should cancel the elections.”
The GOP would like nothing better. Treacherous seas ahead.
Wow…Sanders got shellacked.
https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1237620606679552000?s=19
I live in NYC, I commute to work on a crowded subway every day, and I keep hearing someone at the back of my office coughing.
It gets me thinking. One part of me feels a sense of Schadenfreude at what’s happening now. I can’t help it, it’s the political junkie in me, even though I’m as aware as anyone of the huge human and economic costs.
Why can’t Trump’s presidency get wrecked without all the collateral damage? Why can’t he, like, nuke the North Pole or something?
@Kylopod:
Because the Trumpaloons wouldn’t notice and would continue to worship him. The collateral damage, that will included Cult45 is what it will take to get their attention. They won’t vote against him, but may stay home.
Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11
This is your daily reminder that it took Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health Emergency
It began in April of ‘09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died
Where was the media hysteria then?
Gerry Doyle
@mgerrydoyle
swine flu was declared a public health emergency at the end of april 2009, and again, this fact is available on wikipedia
Gerry Doyle
@mgerrydoyle
the disinformation is clumsy but it’s permeating one side of the political spectrum like, uh… a virus
More supply chain issues. Getting people more money to spend is not going to correct the disrupted supply chain.
Exclusive: U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab materials
Steve Kornacki
@SteveKornacki
There are still ~1 million uncounted votes in CA, so this number will rise, but so far Dem primary/caucus turnout is up about 26% compared to 2016
@Kylopod:
This has been on my mind lately. Here’s what I’m thinking:
– With my political fellow travelers, we disagree on the means to shared ends;
– With my political opponents, we disagree on the ends, but those ends do not diverge to an extreme degree, and we do share enough common ground that we agree as to what constitutes acceptable means;
– With my political enemies, we disagree profoundly. It is no longer a question of better and worse, but of good and bad, if not good and evil. If my enemy’s plans do not lead to horrible results, I cannot help but question my own assumptions. But when those horrible results actually come to fruition, I see that intellectually and morally, I have been vindicated. Any such victory must necessarily be bitter sweet if one was aiming at general happiness and prosperity.
@Scott:
If trump can’t get his rosy numbers one way, he’ll get them another.
@OzarkHillbilly: Those of us of a certain age remember how Gerald Ford got hammered publicly — mostly by the right — for taking Swine Flu seriously in 1976 and trying to mass-vaccinate the population.
Making a killing: what can novels teach us about getting away with murder?
If the author had ever talked to a big city homicide detective he’d know they are as common as hound’s teeth.
Why It Pays to Be Grumpy and Bad-Tempered
I feel better now.
It’s been around a year since the 737 MAX was grounded worldwide.
I’ll risk it and say the MCAS problem, plus all the other stuff found since, did not have a simple solution.
MSNBC says the Trump administration is still proposing cuts to the CDC.
@Tyrell (from yesterday’s sick leave post): Aha! So you were always one of the hogs sloppin’ at the public trough! That explains a lot. Now we know why you think Medicare is so unfair and low quality coverage and want to try to buy a better policy.
Unrealistic expectations always reveal themselves.
Harvey Weinstein got 23 years in prison.
He still has charges pending in Los Angeles.
Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Edited to add dang Kathy beat me by seconds!
@OzarkHillbilly: Decades ago I saw an interview with a homicide detective who was asked exactly that, if he’d ever seen a perfect murder. He replied, ‘How would I know?’ A perfect murder would not only be unsolved, it would be unrecognized.
@Teve:
Next time, I’ll count to ten before posting.
@Kathy:
And now Boeing’s primary customer industry is in recession. Suppose our anti-trust people will allow Airbus to buy Boeing’s commercial side?
@Kit: Opponents and enemies are people whose thinking is furthest from your own, whatever the issue or side you’re on. If you don’t understand them, you’re the last one who should be putting them into one group or another.
Also, you have no idea how the public will respond to a crisis. There’s no guarantee they’ll come over to your side. The only thing you can be sure of: people are suffering.
For those who have been handwringing about democratic turnout:
Also the National Review weighs in on the President’s handling of COVID-19 to date. The results are not pretty:
@95 South:
I tried to explicitly distinguish between opponents and enemies.
NYT has a good, long, article on the Russia-Saudi oil fight.
The article notes that Sechin, whose relationship with Putin is even deeper than the article notes, wants to destroy the American frackers. The author also quotes a noted European economist saying they’ll only go into hibernation. (Or be bought out. The oil, after all, is still there.)
It should also be noted that whatever the short term results, every ton of oil we burn is a long term defeat for everyone.
@Kit
That’s my point. You can’t. You don’t understand them well enough.
@Kylopod :
Because a saddening number of people cannot understand fire is hot until they are burned, sometimes repeatedly. Even now, we see FOX dismissing COVID-19 deaths as “the olds” being natural targets despite the fact that’s who their target demographic is. The misinformation they spread can and will kill some of their viewers….. and the viewers are still lapping it up. They’re pushing payroll taxes cuts as a solution to this crisis like $10 more per check in your pocket will magically make hand sanitizer show up on empty shelves and your cough go away when you catch it from ignorant people who think this is NBD. Until it hits them where it hurts, there will be no change.
It’s not fair everyone has to suffer for Cult45’s stupidity. However, the only way you’re going start cracking that brainwashing is to let them stick their hand into the flames and make sure you’ve got enough burn gel to go around.
@95 South:
Do you mean that I do not understand them well enough, or that no one can ever understand well enough?
@95 South:
I think you’re conflating two different senses of “furthest from”. I understand (e.g.) Federalist Society members perfectly. I also oppose everything they stand for. I also understand genuine fascists pretty well, and consider them to be evil. It is simply not true that it is impossible to understand people you disagree with completely.
(There is an apt quotation from Gandalf that I will manfully refrain from making.)
Trump has realized how bad he is fuqing up, and so now he has classified all Covid-19 deliberations. Which, of course, is another fuq up in his management of this “crisis”.
Weinstein got 23 years.
Trump should be nervous about that, too.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
If you don’t understand by now why public recommendations to deal with the crisis have to be kept secret, your vote is lost to the stable moron of the unmatched folly anyway.
@Kit: Any person has trouble understanding the thinking of someone they disagree with. The Right doesn’t understand the Left, the Left doesn’t understand the Right, Trek people don’t understand Star Wars fans. The more important something is to a person, the more central it is to his thinking, the worse he’s going to be at understanding someone who thinks differently.
Not to say that everyone who thinks differently on an issue thinks the same way. Just, the assumptions and nuances that are different among them are going to be easier for them to notice than for someone opposed to them.
@95 South:
No offense, but I think you may be conflating “understanding” with “agreeing.”
There are whole fields dedicated to understandings people you don’t agree with. See everything from international relations to therapy to basic business negotiation.
@mattbernius:
This is one of the rare times lately I’ve seen “Periodical X weighs in” used correctly. This was indeed a statement from The Editors rather than the take of a single columnist at said periodical.
@95 South:..The only thing you can be sure of: people are suffering.
Yes they are…
When Biden’s veep pick gets to debate Pence 6 months from now the whoooooooole thing is going to be coronavirus incompetence.
I don’t know why I continue to be astonished, but Reuters is reporting that the White House has chosen to classify COVID-19 deliberations, which not only is limiting the amount of information coming *out* of the administration on this, but because a lot of disease experts don’t have security clearances, it’s limiting the amount of expert contribution to the deliberations/discussions.
The incredible incompetence of this administration continues to be jaw-dropping.
Hi guys,
If the dumbsh*ts on the right make claims about H1N1 not being managed well they are wrong. I lived through it and it is considered one of the more successful responses to a new strain of flu. If anyone on the right is open to evidence (LOLOLOLOLOL), ok I nearly peed myself after I wrote that. here is a link to a contemporary account, May 1st that year, talking about the response. Link follows. Also, should note that the total number of deaths from H1N1 was pretty low. (I hate going over this again and again, ut H1N1 was first found in the spring of 2009. We began to prepare for it but the warm weather really did cause it to peter out, this was a flu virus after all. It then returned that fall but most of us were well prepared. It ended up not being very virulent. It was not officially called a pandemic for a while not because we weren’t prepared but because not many people were dying from it and not as many people as we thought even got the disease.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20090501.001058/full/
Steve
@mattbernius: “No offense, but I think you may be conflating “understanding” with “agreeing.””
Or he is brilliantly defining his own limitations as a thinker and a citizen and attributing it to everyone else.
In the completely inane department, we have this from CNBC:
Ya think? Seriously? Is there anyone in the country who was thinking “I bet this whole coronavirus thing has peaked”, prior to hearing from this official or reading CNBC’s account?
@95 South:
Completely understanding? I’ll give you that. But but “not understanding at all”? I’ll have to disagree. It’s the heart of real politics, debate, business, and so many other activities.
When Trump spouts off about what a big nothing COVID-19 is, I wonder: Do we take him seriously, or do we take him literally?
@95 South:
I think that’s a reasonable point, but it strikes me more as just how opaque motivations are, even to oneself. Goals are easier to understand, I think, especially when filtered through political parties. There are plenty of factors that lead me to my position on, say, immigration: some rational, some more of a deep-seated feeling, and some based on how I’m digesting my last meal. But in the end I must support a political party advocating for some particular position. I can understand and judge those positions, as well as the means used to implement those positions.
I’ll also add that while strong passions get in the way of mutual comprehension, they are also likely to show just how far apart people are in basic outlook. Fists fly when people come to the limits of their understanding.
@Kathy:..Next time, I’ll count to ten before posting.
ETA: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
Nice link looking at rate of increase in Covid cases. This is original site Drum cited. Original site is better. Dont look if you scare easily.
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-update.html
Steve
Now it’s NBC News’s turn to be vapid:
That number “could continue to climb” in pretty much the same way the sun “might rise tomorrow”. What the testing shortfall means is that the actual number of cases (and note that the quoted bit didn’t say “more than 1000 people who have tested positive”, it said “more than 1000 people infected”) is probably significantly higher than the number of positive tests — and that we will be tardy in spotting new cases going forward.
Was there a time in the past when the major media were smarter and more articulate than this, or was I just less aware of how bad things were?
Holy shit.
https://twitter.com/GaryGrumbach/status/1237799439823241216?s=20
Trump, who is the leader of a country in the midst of a crisis, refuses to talk to Pelosi or Schumer.
He’s a big fat orange child with a shitty comb-over.
@Mikey: the last scientific estimate of case fatality rate i saw was 1.6%. So that would mean 1.1-2.4 million deaths in the US.
@Teve: Fatality rate can range from 1% where the “curve” is flatter and care is available and adequate up to 4-5% where the health care system is overwhelmed and incoming patients are triaged based on age to see who gets to breathe.
Knowing America’s health care system…I’m not reassured. At all.
Not all airlines reducing capacity and cancelling flights make the news.
Today I had to book a ticket for a coworker for Ciudad del Carmen. That’s pretty much Mexico’s oil capital, though it’s a dinky, small port town without any charm. Still, it used to see seven daily flights from Mexico City, sometimes more.
Today, there were two. One each on Interjet and Aeromexico.
Usually finding a ticket for same day travel there is impossible. today there was no problem. So demand is way down.
@Mikey:
Today’s news from Italy is dire: confirmed cases up 20% in one day to 12000+, deaths now outnumber recoveries, and the “active cases” growth is accelerating.
Italy is a much closer comp to the US than either China or South Korea. If I were advising the President, it would be voluntary travel and association restrictions everywhere by the end of the week, and a threat of martial law if voluntary compliance is low.
@DrDaveT:
When I see CSK opining
two posts later, I’m really open to the possibility that people in the country are thinking just that about the virus having peaked. The capacity for self-delusion of small groups of people in this country is almost boundless. Look at who some people voted for in 2016 (or 2012 as far as that goes).
If you want to limit the question to people who understood the issue in the first place, certainly you’re right, but randos off the street? Bound to be some. Probably lots. Fox News is the most watched, after all.
@James Joyner:
Thanks for noticing! I thought that was an an important distinction.
Dow enters the first Bear Market since 2008.
Something else Trump has done that Obama never did.
So much winning!!!
@Mikey: Is that the number of people actually catching COVID 19, or simply being exposed to it?
Given the game of Telephone that the media now so often indulges it and their tendency to always go for the more sensational description, I’m wondering if they haven’t mucked up “exposure” with “catching”…..
And… the hammer just fell in the office.
All “non-essential” travel is cancelled until the end of April.
All vendors have been told not to visit.
All customer visits cancelled.
Anyone who has traveled (even personal) is to remain at home until cleared.
Anyone with a cough is banned from the factory.
This on top of news this morning that we’ve been hit hard by both the tariffs and the disruption in manufacturing and shipping in China.
@grumpy realist: Julian Riou, an epidemiologist modeling the spread of the disease in China, posted this at Andrew Gelman’s blog:
How on earth is this the leader of this nation?
Hamper. His. Narrative.
November cannot come soon enough.
@grumpy realist: The report said he used the word “contract.”
I’ve been playing the game Pandemic on my iPad — it’s a cooperative game, but I’m not very cooperative, so I just play four roles — and even on easy mode, it is hard.
If real pandemics are anything like this game, we are totally fucked if there are four different diseases all at once.
@Mikey: Given how our country is handling it, I’m wondering if I should just go to Korea for a year…
Italy might not be bad in about six months if hospital beds are available.
@Kathy: They moved those engines in an effort to get better fuel efficiency. But they did not run enough test flights after they did that, or training.
I would be wary of getting in a plane that has been sitting around for over a year.
The maintenance has been very expensive: fluid changes, keeping insects and animals out, tire upkeep, keeping down the damage from snow, ice, and cold weather. and opening the planes up in hot weather.
Apparently Trump doesn’t want to meet with Pelosi because his fee fees are hurt…
We could call Trump a pussy, but that would be an insult to pussies everywhere…
@An Interested Party:
Oh, the poor baby, he has to do something he doesn’t want to. Now he might know what it feels like to have a job.
“It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
-Donald Trump, 3/10/20
So the moron in chief goes from “Everything is fine” to blind panic and flailing wildly in one step. And his moronic Evangelical and Trump State supporters will blither along behind him.
Did Guarneri finally get banned? His posts are all gone from one of today’s threads.
Suspending travel from Europe to prevent new cases of a virus that’s already here. Too late. The call is coming from inside the house.
Here’s what’s going to happen. Half the population of every country is going to get this virus. Because it affects the young much more than the old, we are going to see the most abrupt transfer of wealth and power to the (relatively) young that has occurred in recorded history. Come July or August or so there will be a real split in the population between those who have had it and say “everyone is going to get it anyway so we should lift travel restrictions, bring back crowds at sporting events, etc” and those older folks who are still terrified and hunkered down and want the restrictions to stay in place. (My wife and I are at the cusp, but I’m preparing myself that my mother and mother-in-law, at 92 and 88 respectively and not very strong, will probably not make it).
Bottom line, by September/October there will be a groundswell that it is better to just get the virus and let it play out than to continue to hunker down.
@PJ:
Wouldn’t surprise me. He isn’t attempting to make points – even bad ones – or repeating right-wing talking points any more. He’s just hurling insults.
Well. I’m reassured. You’re all reassured, right? Because I was totally reassured by the gasping, orange robot. It’s all better now.
If he did get banned, that’s fine, all he did was look like an angry goober.
Having moderated a board for 15 years, I can tell you that you gotta have some Clorox in the pool.
NBA suspending season after tonights games.
@mister bluster: At least someone is talking this seriously. The President* still doesn’t seem to. My first reaction to his Oval Office address was what was that about. He set up an Oval Office address for that? But I’m really disturbed by his comments that the disease may be serious for old people but young people don’t really need to worry. Governor Inslee was asked what the penalty was for violating the new Washington social distance rules. He replied that you might kill your grandfather. Young people may not get all that sick, but they’re STILL CARRIERS. After all this, Trump still seems to have no idea how transmission works. Nor his staff.
Dow futures just hit a ‘circuit breaker’ after falling 1000 and trading was halted.
@Teve: Well that Oval Office address went over well.
The President’s speech was a complete embarrassment. He is going to take the GOP down with him, as they quake in terror of the threat of a mean tweet.
The virus is now beyond containment, and hospitals are about to buckle. He did not mention testing. When “Dr.” Pence was asked if the uninsured could get free testing, he walked away from the podium.
The entire U.S. response has been purely political, including this speech. About the time Biden clinches, he’ll mutter the words “I think we should cancel the elections.”
The GOP would like nothing better. Treacherous seas ahead.