Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

What was that General Sherman said about the press?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

LOL. I said you "you can say that again;" that doesn't mean you have to repeat yourself! (Animal to Shapiro in Stalag 17)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


The president can't halt Congressionally-appropriated funds. I.e., funding is not at the president's discretion. Congress has the power of the purse and if the appropriations that pass Congress say that $100M is to be spent on a hunt for Sasquatch, then that $100M has to be spent and it has to be spent on a hunt for Sasquatch. The president can't say "I'm preventing this from being spent."

That DEPENDS. It depends on the specific wording of the bill. There are many examples where the Congress orders the executive branch to certify foreign compliance with demands made by the Congress before disbursing funds. Is such a qualifier in a bill pertaining to the WHO? I have no idea. Should a bill contain such wording on UN expenditures? Damn right it should.

Who wants to bet on how many foreigners are at the UN HQ in NY right now?

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

This one seems out of place with him...maybe not...

"There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

States sorted by deaths/M.

This is of particular interest to me since the national media predicted southern states would suffer disproportionately and that assertion was repeated with vigor by a number of forumites.

The southern states tended to "push the power down" - to let local jurisdictions handle matters. As discussed in here previously, most were proactive, imposing countermeasures sooner than many states elsewhere and sooner than some European countries.

States in the South are conspicuous in their scarcity from this list. Louisiana is there. Georgia too, but it currently ranks 14th on the list but is the 8th largest state. Many others are very low, including NC, Tenn., Ala, SC and Fla.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Recent US funding of the WHO is running at over $500M a year. 2/3rd of that is VOLUNTARY. They aren't going to "run out of money"

The US taxpayer has been the piggy bank for the WHO forever. And what do we get? The dumbasses resisted US travel bans and delayed the pandemic classification in order to assuage Chicom feelings. Am i worried the Chinese are going to gain influence? It already happened.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Trump calls for halt to US funding for World Health Organization amid coronavirus outbreak
23 mins ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-calls-for-halt-to-us-funding-for-world-health-organization-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/ar-BB12D4Vp?li=BBnb7Kz


"The Trump administration will halt funding to the World Health Organization as it evaluates the agency’s “role in severely mismanaging” the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.

“Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said at a White House press conference."

Good.

When WHO is unable to stop the next Ebola outbreak because of lack of funds and the re-opened economy brings it to the US again, will you still think that was the right choice? Granted their performance early in the outbreak was not stellar, but WHO was getting contradictory info just like the rest of us. It took a few weeks of careful observations to determine which info was correct and which was not. That doesn't amount to being useless overall IMO.

BTW, if the US stop funding the W.H.O., the next in line (as major funder) is... China.

Which is the strategy China employed in the last decade - it doesn't matter if reacting to global political decisions or inaction by the West in some area of the World: "Don't worry. We are here (omitted: to stay). We will help!"

And, no, the objection that China contributes a fraction of the money the US gave to the W.H.O. doesn't hold. There is a void, and they will move to fill it. And many other countries will cooperate, both because they are already looking at China as the epicenter of a new trade block and out of spite for (political sentence detected!... bzzzz... Exterminate! Exterminate! zap!).

Stop funding the W.H.O. in the middle of a pandemic... Great move. No, really

It's the smartest thing we could have possibly done. Either they can react by cleaning up their act, replacing the leadership stooges in the pocket of China and thereby restore themselves to the good graces of the US and restore their funding source, or they can go running into the arms of China, completely undermining what little credibility they have left and destroying themselves as an organization. The US has no use for them if they are simply going to be an arm of China.

p.s. Clive is one of my favorite actors and your use of his image is seriously undermining how I view him. Funny how that seems to work.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

Dec. 19, 2017



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html


"Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal.

Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks.

Some scientists are eager to pursue these studies because they may show, for example, how a bird flu could mutate to more easily infect humans, or could yield clues to making a better vaccine."


"When the moratorium was imposed, it effectively halted 21 projects, Dr. Collins said. In the three years since, the N.I.H. created exceptions that funded ten of those projects. Five were flu-related, and five concerned the MERS virus.

That virus is a coronavirus carried by camels that has infected about 2,100 people since it was discovered in 2012, and has killed about a third of them, according to the World Health Organization."

Mildly concerning, but we know that this coronavirus wasn't made in a lab.

Is "the scientific panel" the institutional review board process? If so, that is rather stringent and any risk of harm to humans has to be mitigated or conclusively shown to be worth it. It's worth noting that "compassionate use" falls outside of this process specifically because treatments that haven't yet met the stringent "prove it doesn't have negative side effects" part of the process would not pass.

How does one know it is not made in a lab? With a Blister agent that attacks the lungs it is easy.


Designer label? Made in ?
RNA sequence? Surface proteins... the keys it uses to enter cells thus attacking parts of the body it's type normally does not attack?

A month ago I read reports that HIV drugs were used with success in treating CV19 patients. It made me think Hmmmm! In the past few days I've read several reports that researchers are saying that CV19 is attacking and destroying T cells, just like HIV.

Now they also claim it is causing heart inflammation, acute kidney disease, neurological malfunction, blood clots, intestinal damage and liver problems.

quote:

SARS-CoV passed through civets and MERS-CoV through camels, and the molecular structure of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus also passed through an intermediate animal, but scientists don't yet know which one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Even your Refrigerator

Smart refrigerator, also known as internet refrigerator, is a refrigerator which has been programmed to sense what kinds of products are being stored inside it and keep a track of the stock through barcode or RFID scanning. This kind of refrigerator is often equipped to determine itself whenever a food item needs to be replenished.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

A couple of ways it may go through

National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-who-funding-halt-does-he-have-the-power-to-do-it/

"I’d wager that the surest way to cut off the WHO and make it stick is to shift the appropriated WHO funding to COVID-19 relief for the states. They are stressed by the outbreak and pleading for more federal dollars. For all the bellowing Democrats are doing today about the prospect of cutting off the WHO, they’d have a hard time protesting additional funding for their states and districts. Indeed, even now, many Democrats are being careful not to defend the WHO; rather, they suggest that Trump is blame-shifting and attempting to scapegoat the WHO for his own failings.

The other route, a formal rescission of funding is more difficult.


Under federal budgetary law, the president may temporarily halt the funding and send a rescission message to Congress, asking for the appropriated funding to be rescinded, explaining why, and describing the impact doing so. Congress would then have 45 days to act on the request, which can be fast-tracked (i.e., the usual parliamentary rules that slow or prevent action are not applicable). If Congress failed to act, the president would be required to spend the funding as Congress has directed.

Congress could also draft its own rescission legislation, also on a fast track. But note that for any action on Capitol Hill, it would be necessary for lawmakers both to be physically present (since the push for remote voting has stalled) and to come to some consensus. Neither of these is a sure thing at the moment, to say the least."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Olorin

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I've never owned a smartphone and won't ever. I never thought it would be an issue, and still don't think it will be, but...hmm. For the 0.2% of the population who have "opted out," this is kinda weird stuff.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Google and Apple are working together on an automated smart phone infectious contact technology.

The way it would work is the user would have to "opt in" (supposedly) and then their smart phone would record the wifi "chirps" of all the nearby smart phones throughout the day. When a person was found to be positive for COVID-19, the system would query their phone and pull up all the chirp contacts during their contagious period and then "public health authorities" would use that to do contact tracing.

It's seriously creepy with tremendous 4th Amendment abuse potential. Note: This is NOT GPS tracing or even cell tower tracing> If I understand it is the technology used by the phone to find wifi networks

It's news like this that make me seriously consider throwing my smartphone to the garbage bin.
Also, deleting windows and installing ubuntu.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

It’s the End of the World Economy as We Know It

2 hrs ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/its-the-end-of-the-world-economy-as-we-know-it/ar-BB12IfZJ?li=BBnb7Kz


"“There will be a rethink of how much any country wants to be reliant on any other country,” said Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I don’t think fundamentally this is the end of globalization. But this does accelerate the type of thinking that has been going on in the Trump administration, that there are critical technologies, critical resources, reserve manufacturing capacity that we want here in the U.S. in case of crisis.”"

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Show of hands. Who thinks the Chicoms are going to pay for the vaccine for the Third World when it is available?

I can hear the chorus now...."It's in the interest of the US to pay for it"

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Public Health is one of the few worthwhile activities of government but giving them more tools for surveillance is absolutely dangerous. The Patriot Act seemed like a good idea at the time but now we find out the boys in Washington are using the FISA court to spy on US citizens and bullshitting the FISA judges.

I don't trust them to put the WIFI chirp data back in the bottle when the pandemic is over.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Coronavirus: Gov. Newsom says things will be normal when we have “herd immunity.” Here’s why that’s scary.
What does ‘herd immunity’ look like? About 28 million infected Californians. Maybe 840,000 deaths.
April 16, 2020
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-gov-newsom-says-things-will-be-normal-when-we-have-herd-immunity-heres-why-thats-scary/

"What’s herd immunity? It’s when so many people have been infected and develop protective antibodies that a virus runs out of hosts. That’s likely what happened in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, which killed 20 to 40 million people and then vanished.

What does “herd immunity” look like in the age of COVID-19? Without a vaccine, about 28 million infected Californians.

Based on current estimates, about 5 percent of infected people — or roughly 1.4 million Californians — would get severely ill. Of these, 840,000 could die, although there’s hope of holding that number down."

Yes. Guess what the level of measles vaccine compliance is require for "herd immunity" to offer good protection?

93%

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Let's keep this among ourselves


Exclusive: Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the U.S. Capital
2 hrs ago



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/exclusive-secret-military-task-force-prepares-to-secure-the-us-capital/ar-BB12IZtv?li=BBnb7Kz



"But a little-known military task force charged with evacuating Washington has already been activated, a task force charged with the most sensitive government mission of "securing" Washington in the face of attackers, foreign and domestic—and if necessary, moving White House and other key government offices to alternate locations."

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Hot spots erupt in farm belt states where governors insist lockdowns aren’t needed
04/15/2020 08:02 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/coronavirus-hot-spots-farm-belt-189272


"Trump and red state governors for weeks have fairly bragged about how large parts of the farm belt have escaped the ravages of the virus without the enforced shelter-in-place policies common on both coasts.

It’s still unclear whether the states actually “flattened the curve,” or if the virus just reached there later.

But now, cases are erupting, threatening a local population that doesn’t always have easy access to the same health care as more urban areas.

And the outbreaks are striking the heart of the nation’s farming and meatpacking industry, potentially disrupting the national distribution of food as meat processing plants close down and truckers who move food across the country are sidelined by illness."

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn



"Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

That's just wrong, Lokasenna. If South Carolina had the most deaths/million, that would help illuminate the magnitude of a problem. And if South Carolina had the least deaths/M, that tells us something else.

If Georgia has 72 deaths/M, comparing that to the rates of other states absolutely has merit. There will be other factors to consider, but dismissing that as one means of comparison is like tossing your 9-iron into the woods because you can't use it for every shot.