Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[LesPalenik]

Maine hardly has any cases and Atlantic Canada is north of them. 

And interestingly, Maine is not an island.

[LesPalenik]

What a stupid reaction. If any family in the world is safe from covid this Thanksgiving, it is that family.

Coincidentally, as I was watching the Canadian CTV news tonight, they aired an interview with Alexa Aragonez from that family. She said that the family is getting better but her mother who had a heart issue is still not back to normal.

“Luckily, she doesn’t need to have oxygen anymore,” Aragonez told KERA. “But she is on heart medication and needs to take things very slow. This morning, when we were on FaceTime, she said she still had a lot of pain in her chest and is still really exhausted from everything.”

“Most everyone who was infected still has that exhausted feeling and pain in their chest,” she said. “But, you know, they’re not ‘okay.’ But they’re doing decent.” Alexa Aragonez, fortunately, was not at the party and did not get sick.

[digitaldog]

She said that the family is getting better but her mother who had a heart issue is still not back to normal.

But she didn't die and for some, that's all the counts. Heart issues, possibly worsened by Covid-19, no big deal, stop moaning is what we'll hear next. From someone who probably doesn't know anyone who has suffered like that family. Out of mind, out of heart... 

[Alan Klein]

No surprise here. Your statement is not true.

https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/post/automatic-weapons-are-legal-it-takes-lot-get-one

What a surprise! Also not true.

"Biden has not called for a new tax on firearms. He opposes easy access to assault weapons and would ban their manufacture and sale. Existing weapons would be subject to new regulations.

He has proposed applying an existing federal law on machine guns to assault weapons — which can include semi-automatic firearms — and high-capacity magazines. That existing law includes a $200 tax.

However, it’s ultimately unclear whether that tax would apply to all semi-automatic firearms, if it would be charged per unit or if existing gun-owners would be charged anything at all."

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/nov/01/does-joe-bidens-plan-tax-semi-automatic-firearms/

https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/

Semi-automatic weapons include practically every rifle and handgun that's more than single-shot but less than a machine gun.  That's practically most weapons used for defense and hunting and collection.  Saying it's "ultimately unclear" does not give confidence to gun owners that he wouldn't "pull the trigger" on it and charge existing owners the $200.   

[Alan Klein]

And interestingly, Maine is not an island.

It's hard to get Covid from a moose. 

[TechTalk]

Semi-automatic weapons include practically every rifle and handgun that's more than single-shot but less than a machine gun.  That's practically most weapons used for defense and hunting and collection.

Only if you leave out all of the handguns sold as revolvers, shotguns that are pump-action or break-action (breech loading), bolt-action and lever-action rifles. Yeah, except for all of those guns that are "used for defense and hunting and collection".

Saying it's "ultimately unclear" does not give confidence to gun owners that he wouldn't "pull the trigger" on it and charge existing owners the $200.   

That would be among the things worked out in the legislative process as the article stated. Under the NFA, the tax is on transfers.

"The NFA was amended in 1968 to provide a 30-day amnesty period in which unregistered firearms could be registered with the federal government for free. The new law, titled the Gun Control Act, also says ATF can issue new amnesty periods of up to 90 days.

Those kinds of amnesty periods could also apply to Biden’s proposal."

Not nearly as vague as your gossipy rumor "In the meanwhile, Biden wants to add a "tax" on weapons.  I heard $200 per weapon."

[TechTalk]

Sounds like a poll tax which is unconstitutional. So I don't think it will pass legal muster.

You're not much of a lawyer either. You're unable to differentiate a "poll tax" on the right to vote from a tax on the transfer of certain specific types of weapons under the National Firearms Act (NFA) which has already passed Constitutional muster decades ago. You might also want read up on Scalia's comments in Heller on the right of government to regulate the types of weapons that people can own and where and how they can be carried.

https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act

https://regulations.atf.gov/§ 479.11 Meaning of terms

Scroll Down to Page #4 - Definitions/Instructions

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/form/form-4-application-tax-paid-transfer-and-registration-firearm-atf-form-53204

[TechTalk]

At least Republicans don't suffer from delirium syndrome. 

Also not true.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/delirium

delirium - noun
1: an acute mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention usually accompanied by disordered speech and hallucinations
2: frenzied excitement
    a crowd in a state of delirium

Sounds to me like an average Trump rally... especially the cheering and excitable QAnon faction... or Trump's Elite Strike Force Legal Team... or the newly elected QAnon Republican Congressional Representatives

[armand]

Doctors angry, frustrated that many in public not heeding COVID warnings

https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/doctors-angry-frustrated-that-many-in-public-not-heeding-covid-warnings/5NBX56MEHNEJXEXYUPKOS7MASU/?fbclid=IwAR0BSjVW6fVeUcZR18-wFpsLz_ZblVlXosfAD5EmXVOUQi4Vjf0L70P2E6w

[LesPalenik]

It's hard to get Covid from a moose.

It's always a good idea to maintain a healthy distance from a moose. They could kick or trample you.
Did you know that moose was introduced to Newfoundland from New Brunswick? In 1904, they brought in 4 animals (I guess two pairs, but it could have been also just one bull and three cows), and in 1930 they opened the first moose hunting season. By now they have 150,000 descendants of those immigrants. License fee for a moose hunting tag is $50 for residents and $500 for non-residents. For the 2020-21 season there is an overall total of 28,339 licences for Newfoundland and Labrador. Quite a few people have been injured and killed by road accidents caused by moose crossing the roads. Cost estimates for vehicle damage alone are more than $1 million annually.

[Alan Klein]

It's always a good idea to maintain a healthy distance from a moose. They could kick or trample you.
Did you know that moose was introduced to Newfoundland from New Brunswick? In 1904, they brought in 4 animals (I guess two pairs, but it could have been also just one bull and three cows), and in 1930 they opened the first moose hunting season. By now they have 150,000 descendants of those immigrants. License fee for a moose hunting tag is $50 for residents and $500 for non-residents. For the 2020-21 season there is an overall total of 28,339 licences for Newfoundland and Labrador. Quite a few people have been injured and killed by road accidents caused by moose crossing the roads. Cost estimates for vehicle damage alone are more than $1 million annually.

Do the moose carry car insurance?

[LesPalenik]

Do the moose carry car insurance?

Don't know about the Newfoundland moose but Ontario moose carry ticks.

[LesPalenik]

A big problem with the masks, disposable or more permanent, is the oncoming environment pollution. I see already now discarded masks on the streets, parking lots and even some parks and beaches.

Three-ply surgical masks, are designed for safety but also disposability, which should involve placement in a trash can. Yet, I now encounter them dispersed across supermarket parking lots, outside the entrance to my home, along the path to the beach.

They might join the marine debris constituting the five great garbage patches accumulating in the planet’s oceans or wash up on distant shores. The ear loops, unless they’ve been prudently snipped, might entangle the legs of unsuspecting seabirds. The plastic contained within these surgical masks—their filters are woven from polypropylene—makes the outcome of masks adrift in the ocean especially distressing.

Much of this plastic waste will be disposed of improperly. As noted in a July statement by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: “Our streets, beaches and ocean have been hit by a tidal wave of COVID-19 waste including plastic face masks, gloves, hand sanitizer bottles and food packaging.” The statement estimates that 75 percent of pandemic-related plastic waste will end up in landfills and the sea. In the latter setting, the negative effects will be dramatic. According to UNCTAD, marine plastic pollution takes an economic toll on tourism, fisheries, and maritime transports, of about $40 billion a year; this deficit will further batter industries already affected financially by the coronavirus. The economy can recover, however. Environmental impacts are more concerning because they are irreversible. Once microplastics are floating in the sea, they are currently impossible to collect.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/10/disposable-masks-ocean-pollution-archaeology.html

[TechTalk]

Well, there is this DATA:
According to a Tuesday poll by Morning Consult and Politico, 71 percent of Republican voters believe that Trump has the best interests of the U.S. at heart. The same could not be said of Republican members of Congress, with only 17 percent of those Republicans polled saying GOP lawmakers were committed to the country's best interests.
Indeed, confirmation bias.

Proves nothing. GOP lawmakers run for election.  The regular Republican doesn't so they can tell it how they feel it.  YOu don't have to be a brain scientist to figure it out.

Your reply doesn't make any sense in relation to the post which you're quoting. Try reading it again. There was only one group being polled—Republican voters—regarding their opinion of Trump and their opinion of Republican members of Congress. You don't have to be a brain scientist to figure it out.

[TechTalk]

A fairly lengthy, but well worth reading, article in Politico. It lays bare the fraud being perpetrated on the American public by Donald Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party as they work to undermine the foundations of democracy.

https://www.politico.com/2020/11/24/michigan-election-trump-voter-fraud-democracy

The Inside Story of Michigan’s Fake Voter Fraud Scandal

How a state that was never in doubt became a ‘national embarrassment’ and a symbol of the Republican Party’s fealty to Donald Trump.

Excerpt: "Trump was never going to succeed at altering the outcome in Michigan—or in any of the other contested states, or in the Electoral College itself. The 45th president’s time in office is drawing to a close. No amount of @realdonaldtrump tweets or wild-eyed allegations from his lawyers or unhinged segments on One America News can change that.

But what they can change—where he can ultimately succeed—is in convincing unprecedented numbers of Americans that their votes didn’t count. Last month, Gallup reported that the public’s confidence in our elections being accurate dropped 11 points since the 2018 midterms, which included a 34-point decrease among Republicans. That was before a daily deluge of dishonest allegations and out-of-context insinuations; before the conservative media’s wall-to-wall coverage of exotic conspiracy theories; before the GOP’s most influential figures winked and nodded at the president of the United States alleging the greatest fraud in U.S. history.

Trump failed to win Michigan. But he succeeded in convincing America that a loss, no matter how conclusive, may never again be conclusive enough."

[BernardLanguillier]

Yes, this is 100% aligned with my concerns.

This may be the most offensive of the many ways in which he has been damaging democracy, on top of devaluating the Presidential function and institutions, validating the behaviors of international dictators and trying to force people to go against the will of voters.

He is devaluating democracy itself by attacking the very process of voting that is the essence of Democracy. Before some object thaf it’ legal to fill law suits, this isn’t the point because Trump is never going to acknowledge that his legal failures are a proof he was wrong. In the Trumpest of ways he is going to keep claiming that he got cheated but just cannot proof it. Adding also in the process devaluation of the legal institutions.

This is the good old policy of the burned land. Chaos is his only hope. So much so for law and order. Once again we see that he is the worst perpetrator of what he accuses his adversaries of doing.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

No. What I meant was that fewer nuts manage to acquire lethal weapons...

Ok, but how? Why is it so? What provision of the Canadian gun legislation makes it so, and how is it different from the USA?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Coincidentally, as I was watching the Canadian CTV news tonight, they aired an interview with Alexa Aragonez from that family.

Sorry, Les, but that’s not THAT family I was referring to, nor the family the article’s title was referring to.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

But she didn't die and for some, that's all the counts. Heart issues, possibly worsened by Covid-19, no big deal, stop moaning is what we'll hear next. From someone who probably doesn't know anyone who has suffered like that family. Out of mind, out of heart... 

I have recovered from Covid, in self-isolation. I have two friends who ended up in a Covid hospital. We are ok.

In 2-3 days before falling ill, I attended a 500-people funeral, had long lunches with two friends (separately), one 90-year old, the other 68. Both friends are ok, never got infected by me. No one I know at the funeral, kissed, hugged, stood next to for an hour, etc., got anything worse than a cold or no symptoms. Families of the two friends that ended up in a hospital didn’t get anything worse than a cold, or no symptoms.