PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[faberryman]

I must be reading the news wrong. I thought our GDP was down roughly 33% for the second quarter.  Is Europe's really only down roughly 12%?

[Chris Kern]

I must be reading the news wrong. I thought our GDP was down roughly 33% for the second quarter.  Is Europe's really only down roughly 12%?

The reduction in U.S. GDP for the second quarter currently is estimated to have been 9.5 percent.  If that rate of decrease were to continue for the rest of the year (my impression is that no reputable economist expects that), it would yield an "annualized" reduction in GDP of 32.9 percent.  The second-quarter figures are preliminary; a more precise estimate will be published by the U.S. Department of Commerce on August 27.

[BobShaw]

There was a major mail-in fraud election just a few miles from where I live in New Jersey recently.  They used 100% mail because of the virus.   19% of the votes were fraudulent.  1 in 5!

I gather that each person doesn't not get an individually coded mail in envelope then.

[Alan Klein]

I gather that each person doesn't not get an individually coded mail in envelope then.

Each ballot may be individualized with a number.  But the fraud goes beyond that with outright theft of ballots, intercepting them before they arrive at the voter's home or after they mail them, and I suppose ballots for dead people that get filled out by the fraudsters.  Here's the article. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/26/1_in_5_ballots_rejected_as_fraud_is_charged_in_nj_mail-in_election_143551.html

[faberryman]

Apropos of nothing, watching the news for the past several months, where the guests all appear from home on their laptops, reminds me of the 1989 Batman movie with Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. The Joker announces he has put something toxic in all the makeup and so all the newscasters stop wearing it and progressively look worse and worse. Okay, so not shaving is a thing, but not combing your hair and wearing a ratty old t-shirt with the collar stretched out? That's about where we are now. Boy, things are going to hell in a hand basket in all areas of our lives.

The totals as of today are 4,705,186 cases and 156,742 dead. Forget the testing, 156,742 dead.

[Robert Roaldi]

The Worldometer US deaths per day was 1465, 1465, 1462 for the last three days. That seems a bit unlikely.

[Alan Klein]

Apropos of nothing, watching the news for the past several months, where the guests all appear from home on their laptops, reminds me of the 1989 Batman movie with Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. The Joker announces he has put something toxic in all the makeup and so all the newscasters stop wearing it and progressively look worse and worse. Okay, so not shaving is a thing, but not combing your hair and wearing a ratty old t-shirt with the collar stretched out? That's about where we are now. Boy, things are going to hell in a hand basket in all areas of our lives.

The totals as of today are 4,705,186 cases and 156,742 dead. Forget the testing, 156,742 dead.

Trump is the only authority figure who stills dresses up conservatively and regularly with a suit and tie. The rest look like slobs.

[Alan Klein]

I must be reading the news wrong. I thought our GDP was down roughly 33% on an annual basis but was  quarter.  Is Europe's really only down roughly 12%?

The 32% for America is an annual percentage based on a second quarter of 9.5% if it continued.  The 12%  for ZEuropes is a worse quarterly percentage than America's 9.5%.  Unfortunately, the biased, Trump hating news media tries to make America look worse.  So they mix up the numbers rather than being consistent to make it look worse for the US.  You have to change the media you read if you want to get a different perspective of the truth.


https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/germanys-economy-fared-worse-than-the-us-economy-but-trump-hating-journalists-are-mangling-numbers-to-convince-you-otherwise

[KLaban]

Besides being ridiculous, it just shows the man's ignorance once more. He must be desperate, the virus was supposed to be gone by now, and the economy should be booming. After all, he is doing a tremendous job.

150,000+ and counting, sad...

Hopefully everyone here is finally awake.

[Robert Roaldi]

An article about vaccine consultants and possible conflicts of interest, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/vaccine-project-contract-raises-transparency-questions-389822. I had trouble following the various actors and why they were hired but the main thing I'm wondering is why draw up contracts that potentially hide conflicts of interest. These concepts weren't invented yesterday morning, what's the upside of this kind of contract?  Why do it this way at all? It's public health not military secrets, just make stuff transparent, why invite this scrutiny.

[kers]

Trump is the only authority figure who stills dresses up conservatively and regularly with a suit and tie. The rest look like slobs.

A real gentleman... but not.

[faberryman]

Trump is the only authority figure who stills dresses up conservatively and regularly with a suit and tie. The rest look like slobs.

He hasn’t changed his clothes in months, if not years: blue suit, white shirt, red tie down to his knees. I never know if they are are showing current or archive footage on TV.

[Robert Roaldi]

Trump is the only authority figure who stills dresses up conservatively and regularly with a suit and tie. The rest look like slobs.

And this matters to whom? One of the most sensible things to emerge from the 1960s and aftermath was a relaxation of societal uniforms, no ties at the office for most jobs, casual dress restaurants, etc. Best thing our generation did was to get rid of most of that horse shit. Best thing that happened to me in my life was to get a job where I didn't have to wear a tie, almost completely eliminated stress headaches. I'd like to see some stats on how not wearing artificial textile clothing has decreased yeast infections in women, pantyhose probably being a prime culprit (in my opinion). Retaining the pathetic Victorian vestiges of being uncomfortably dressed because it imparted some kind of phoney social standing makes no sense in modern culture.  Imo, it's mostly a dominance game, the CEO or the country club board wants to see how much discomfort people are willing to endure for the purpose of kissing ass. The sooner we get rid of this kind of thinking the better off we'll all be.

[Robert Roaldi]

Apropos of nothing, watching the news for the past several months, where the guests all appear from home on their laptops, reminds me of the 1989 Batman movie with Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. The Joker announces he has put something toxic in all the makeup and so all the newscasters stop wearing it and progressively look worse and worse. Okay, so not shaving is a thing, but not combing your hair and wearing a ratty old t-shirt with the collar stretched out? That's about where we are now. Boy, things are going to hell in a hand basket in all areas of our lives.

My guess is what that mostly shows is that they're not very good at applying their own TV make-up. I suspect it takes some training and expertise to get that right. Add to that home-based amateur lighting set-ups and it's probably a miracle they look as good as they do. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

From an unexpected source.

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
This spring, a team working under the president's son-in-law produced a plan for an aggressive, coordinated national COVID-19 response that could have brought the pandemic under control. So why did the White House spike it in favor of a shambolic 50-state response?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

Normally, federal government purchases come with detailed contracts, replete with acronyms and identifying codes. They require sign-off from an authorized contract officer and are typically made public in a U.S. government procurement database, under a system intended as a hedge against waste, fraud, and abuse.

This purchase did not appear in any government database. Nor was there any contract officer involved. Instead, it was documented in an invoice obtained by Vanity Fair, from a company, Cogna Technology Solutions (its own name misspelled as “Tecnology” on the bill), which noted a total order of 3.5 million tests for an amount owed of $52 million. The “client name” simply noted “WH.”

[Robert Roaldi]

From an unexpected source.

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
This spring, a team working under the president's son-in-law produced a plan for an aggressive, coordinated national COVID-19 response that could have brought the pandemic under control. So why did the White House spike it in favor of a shambolic 50-state response?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

You have to make allowances for the guy, he was so busy solving Middle East problems.

[Alan Klein]

And this matters to whom? One of the most sensible things to emerge from the 1960s and aftermath was a relaxation of societal uniforms, no ties at the office for most jobs, casual dress restaurants, etc. Best thing our generation did was to get rid of most of that horse shit. Best thing that happened to me in my life was to get a job where I didn't have to wear a tie, almost completely eliminated stress headaches. I'd like to see some stats on how not wearing artificial textile clothing has decreased yeast infections in women, pantyhose probably being a prime culprit (in my opinion). Retaining the pathetic Victorian vestiges of being uncomfortably dressed because it imparted some kind of phoney social standing makes no sense in modern culture.  Imo, it's mostly a dominance game, the CEO or the country club board wants to see how much discomfort people are willing to endure for the purpose of kissing ass. The sooner we get rid of this kind of thinking the better off we'll all be.

Clothes make the man.

[hogloff]

Clothes make the man.

Clothes don't change the man just like hiding stripes on a zebra does not change the zebra. You can dress Trump up in any kind of suit...most suitable would be a clown outfit, but he's still an narcissistic egocentric racist bigot.

[James Clark]

Clothes don't change the man just like hiding stripes on a zebra does not change the zebra. You can dress Trump up in any kind of suit...most suitable would be a clown outfit, but he's still an narcissistic egocentric racist bigot.

This is true.  But his suits are tailored *horribly*.  It’s sort of embarrassing (but that’s par for the course.  Hey, that’s a really appropriate idiom, huh?)

[faberryman]

Clothes don't change the man just like hiding stripes on a zebra does not change the zebra. You can dress Trump up in any kind of suit...most suitable would be a clown outfit, but he's still an narcissistic egocentric racist bigot.

Speaking of clown outfits, I read that Trump has a size 8 foot, but wears a size 12 shoe to accommodate 1 inch lifts. In effect, clown shoes.

Of course, you can't believe everything you read on the internet, so I was wary, but after a good deal of thought I concluded that this is so preposterous nobody could have possibly made it up. I understand Trump had his shoe salesman sign an NDA, so we may never know for certain.