In less geopolitical news, today was my last day of work. I’m now officially retired. The future holds multiple possibilities, many of them scary.
Moggie
4 years ago
Congrats, VP! Best of luck with the job!
Naglfar
4 years ago
@Victorious Parasol
Congrats on your job!
Specialffrog
4 years ago
Marking Brexit Day the Glasgow way:
Snowberry
4 years ago
Senators Lamar Alexander, Marco Rubio, Lisa Murkrowski, Ben Sasse: “Trump committed ALL of the crimes. He’s guilty, and a menace to the continued functioning of government. We know, we admit we know, we don’t care. No removal.”
On one hand this seems to be a petty concern – the US being this corrupt and dysfunctional has been true for quite some time now, so it’s just par for the course… and there’s things going on like super-floods, a volcano, an entire continent ON FIRE, a potential plague brewing… but on the other hand, there’s only so much I can care about at once, and I’ve been something of a political junkie since the Clinton administration. After the trial is over, I’m going to try to limit my politics exposure – not completely, I don’t want to be blindsided by something major and unexpected – but because ultimately, that’s too much stress over things which I can’t actually do very much about.
rv97
4 years ago
My parents probably have a little too much of anti-Chinese sentiment in light of the news of the coronavirus – they have mentioned about how the Chinese bully Filipinos in the past.
Yes, China has some problems, especially with how they’re handling demonstrations in Hong Kong and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims, combined with the deep centralization of power the ruling party has and its problematic attitudes towards its citizens (even employing torture), but I believe that’s where China’s main problems are. I actually commend the Chinese government in only one respect – their lax approach to IP law. The EU and US want to commodify culture to the utmost extent. Trump recently signed a trade law that forces Canada (Mexico already exceeds this requirement) to have a copyright term and law similar to that of the US.
Regarding Brexit, I don’t feel personally as concerned about it since I do want to leave the UK in the long term, but I do believe it will fuel more anti-immigrant sentiment (this is primarily why Brexit even gained traction) and turn the UK into a carbon copy of the US without some of the EU’s helpful laws that actually protect consumers, the environment and marginalized individuals (or at least try to).
FlyByKiwi
4 years ago
Yay @Victorious Parasol! Aptly named! Victorious indeed.
And @Moggie good luck.
Disappointing about the witnesses.
Disappointing about Brexit.
On the fence about Coronavirus. One Dr here being interviewed by talk radio made a point to note how beautiful it is, and he’s right, it’s beautiful, but scary. No confirmed cases in NZ yet. I bought into the SARS hysteria and even bought antivirals for all members of my family at the time, just in case. I’m trying not to overreact this time. Just check the emergency kit, that I have enough medicines and food and water and so on.
What really concerns me is the ugly racism that seems to be springing up all over. Some of it cloaked in health ‘concerns’ but some of it just ***holes shouting at anyone who looks Asian that they should ‘go home’. Impressive that some people can tell if a person has been in Hubei province or in contact with someone in Hubei province just by looking at them (sarcasm). Now that person to person transmission outside China has been confirmed and that asymptomatic people can be contagious, measures other than stopping international travel entirely seem unlikely to prevent it coming here. I just hope it doesn’t cause people to act on their baser instincts.
Kevin
4 years ago
Comment about Brexit gleaned from social media – Today, Brexit Day. Tomorrow, United Kingdom closing down sale, please apply to the liquidator Mr S Javid, 11 Downing Street, London, England (preferred currencies are American dollars and Chinese Yuan.)
Ohlmann
4 years ago
The thing with the coronavirus is : how much does the chinese lie ? Hopefully it’s a somewhat classic virus, so they don’t lie much about the state of it because they don’t need to, and we get several hundred or thousand deads, and that’s that.
The thing is, it’s too soon to completely rule out an actually very nasty virus. Given the general underfunding of hospital all over the western world, that could end with something dramatic. That’s pretty unlikely for all sorts of reasons, but let’s hope it’s not the new spanish flu.
For Brexit, it might be good for the EU on the long run, or it could be horrible. Too soon to tell, but the UK isn’t a particulary big loss due to how actively problematic it often was. English might have a lot of problem however, let’s hope they will manage.
For the impeachment, republicans are a death cult since quite a bit of time. The electoral system being what it is, there’s little hope of improvement, and democrats don’t seem ever likely to have the galls to dismantle the system even if they gain a majority able to do so.
AJ Canberra
4 years ago
@FlyByKiwi,
Very true about the racist shit coming up because of the coronavirus. It provides a nice convenient fig leaf of “health concerns” for racist shitheads to show their true colours.
Cyborgette
4 years ago
Following the impeachment stuff. TBH I’m so angry and scared I don’t even have words.
The Republican argument is literally that the President is above the law. They’re just going to go ahead and cement that. The Trump regime’s crimes are already in genocide territory, I’m absolutely terrified of what happens in another year or two. Or four. Or ten. Are we going to see the 13th amendment rescinded? The 19th? You know that’s what these slimebags want.
I pray that we have the collective guts and coordination to pull off a general strike if we have to. I don’t see anything else getting the Republicans out of power at this point – certainly not election results, even if they allow Trump to lose this year’s election.
IDK, I expected this but I’m still going to have trouble sleeping tonight.
Laserqueen
4 years ago
Yes- racist shit, like
The thing with the coronavirus is : how much does the chinese lie ?
Are you assuming the Chinese government is lying? The people in Wuhan? Sure seems like they are facing it head on.
Because if it’s government lying, well then, we here in the US are leading on that one.
Naglfar
4 years ago
@Cyborgette
I’m nervous as well. Even without repeals the courts can cause a lot of harm just by very selectively interpreting the amendments. For example, the 13th still says slavery can be a punishment, courts could use it as a punishment for minorities and dissidents and we get gulags.
I’m at the point of having no hope for the future. How do we get ourselves out of this?
Yutolia the Laissez-Fairy Pronoun Boner
4 years ago
I’m so scared that this way they’ve been treating the impeachment and the constitution in general (emoluments, anyone?) is going to set an even worse precedent than the ones we’ve been setting for all these years, and that’s really saying something.
The coronavirus is terrifying, and I’m especially concerned with how this administration will handle it if it keeps getting more and more serious like it could (and I’m not saying it’s not serious already).
Re: Brexit. I’m sorry you’re all going through this, it must be terrifying.
In Yutolia land, some of you may remember I have been dealing with a stalker situation. I ended up having to switch all of my prescriptions to a completely different company, which was a huge pain, because even though I haven’t seen this guy for a long time (I switched to another branch of the store for awhile), they still haven’t fired him, and someone was going into the system and changing the approvals on my prescriptions. It happened 5 times in row. I haven’t had any problems since switching. Unfortunately I can’t prove he’s doing this – the company was very evasive about who had access and if they could see which employee made a change, and the police aren’t taking it seriously because he hasn’t shown up at my house yet.
Grrrrrrr….
But in good news, I get to sing for the opening session of the Colorado legislature on the 24th!! I’m so excited!!
Congratulations, VP!!
Yutolia the Laissez-Fairy Pronoun Boner
4 years ago
Ok, never mind!!! Just hadn’t updated the right way, sorry, I’ll be quiet!
Random Q
4 years ago
Hey, anybody have a reliable place to go learn about the impeachment proceedings? I have to use my boyfriend’s computer and I haven’t been able to keep up for awhile. All the sites I would normally use, beside this one, either haven’t been posting about this, or haven’t been posting at all.
Dormousing_it
4 years ago
@VP & Moggie: Congrats to you both.
A personal tragedy hit my husband’s family recently. My sister-in-law was hit by a car, and died as a result. She was 66 years old, and had only about a month to go before retirement. This is obscene! My husband was closer to her than to any of his other five siblings. On top of that, she was the main caretaker for her 92 year old father.
I’ve followed Brexit loosely. It seems to me, for the average UK citizen, it would be better to remain a part of the EU.
On the impeachment: It’s as I expected. I’m so disgusted, I don’t know how to put it into words.
Coronavirus: We’ve been through numerous viral scares over the last 15 years or so. Bird flu, swine flu, H1N1, etc. I don’t think it will be a problem in the US. Probably not in Europe, either. Which is not to diminish its lethality in China.
Dormousing_it
4 years ago
@Random Q: I suggest the online Washington Post.
Hey, you’re not a Q follower, are you? Well, I guess it’s none of my business if you are or aren’t.
otrame
4 years ago
You guys know that according to the CDC, influenza has caused 12,000 – 61,000 deaths in the US annually since 2010? The big difference depends on how virulent particular strains are and how successful the scientists are at guessing which strains are going to be a big problem months before “flu season,” so they can make the vaccines.
Note that we do not get all terrified of the flu unless it’s an unusually virulent strain.
I’m not saying that we might not lose some people to the corona virus, but it’s very unlikely to be as much as the normal influenza deaths. Scientists are already making progress on the vaccine, so that worst case scenario is that everyone is going to need to add another vaccination to the list. So the anti-vaxxers will have something to be afraid of, but most of us won’t.
MJ
4 years ago
Thanks (?) to the Vice article, the MGTOW (men getting triggered over women [not what -they- call it]) subreddit has been quarantined.
On reddit, a quarantined sub is still available but cannot be a default, cannot be part of /r/all, and must be explicitly visited. An unknown or unauthenticated user will be asked if they really wish to go there. i think it’s also removed from the search engine, too. In short, it drastically cuts down the visibility of the subreddit.
Tohka
4 years ago
I just read that mgtow is now quarantined on reddit! Took a while but finally.
We Hunted The Mammoth
Regarding the coronavirus, word is in the air that there is a case in the state I live in. I’m a bit nervous, and more people are wearing masks.
Since I don’t know too much about British politics, I don’t have much to say except this: good luck, British mammothers. Stay safe.
Sharing a bit of good news, since this is an OT thread.
I’ve been hired by one of the companies I had interviews for this week.
That’s the bright spot for me right now. I wish I could be proud of my country again.
Yeah, Brexit Day. I feel like I’m in mourning. Please keep our star somewhere safe, friends: maybe we’ll be back for it later.
https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1223175366421946369
In less geopolitical news, today was my last day of work. I’m now officially retired. The future holds multiple possibilities, many of them scary.
Congrats, VP! Best of luck with the job!
@Victorious Parasol
Congrats on your job!
Marking Brexit Day the Glasgow way:
Senators Lamar Alexander, Marco Rubio, Lisa Murkrowski, Ben Sasse: “Trump committed ALL of the crimes. He’s guilty, and a menace to the continued functioning of government. We know, we admit we know, we don’t care. No removal.”
On one hand this seems to be a petty concern – the US being this corrupt and dysfunctional has been true for quite some time now, so it’s just par for the course… and there’s things going on like super-floods, a volcano, an entire continent ON FIRE, a potential plague brewing… but on the other hand, there’s only so much I can care about at once, and I’ve been something of a political junkie since the Clinton administration. After the trial is over, I’m going to try to limit my politics exposure – not completely, I don’t want to be blindsided by something major and unexpected – but because ultimately, that’s too much stress over things which I can’t actually do very much about.
My parents probably have a little too much of anti-Chinese sentiment in light of the news of the coronavirus – they have mentioned about how the Chinese bully Filipinos in the past.
Yes, China has some problems, especially with how they’re handling demonstrations in Hong Kong and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims, combined with the deep centralization of power the ruling party has and its problematic attitudes towards its citizens (even employing torture), but I believe that’s where China’s main problems are. I actually commend the Chinese government in only one respect – their lax approach to IP law. The EU and US want to commodify culture to the utmost extent. Trump recently signed a trade law that forces Canada (Mexico already exceeds this requirement) to have a copyright term and law similar to that of the US.
Regarding Brexit, I don’t feel personally as concerned about it since I do want to leave the UK in the long term, but I do believe it will fuel more anti-immigrant sentiment (this is primarily why Brexit even gained traction) and turn the UK into a carbon copy of the US without some of the EU’s helpful laws that actually protect consumers, the environment and marginalized individuals (or at least try to).
Yay @Victorious Parasol! Aptly named! Victorious indeed.
And @Moggie good luck.
Disappointing about the witnesses.
Disappointing about Brexit.
On the fence about Coronavirus. One Dr here being interviewed by talk radio made a point to note how beautiful it is, and he’s right, it’s beautiful, but scary. No confirmed cases in NZ yet. I bought into the SARS hysteria and even bought antivirals for all members of my family at the time, just in case. I’m trying not to overreact this time. Just check the emergency kit, that I have enough medicines and food and water and so on.
What really concerns me is the ugly racism that seems to be springing up all over. Some of it cloaked in health ‘concerns’ but some of it just ***holes shouting at anyone who looks Asian that they should ‘go home’. Impressive that some people can tell if a person has been in Hubei province or in contact with someone in Hubei province just by looking at them (sarcasm). Now that person to person transmission outside China has been confirmed and that asymptomatic people can be contagious, measures other than stopping international travel entirely seem unlikely to prevent it coming here. I just hope it doesn’t cause people to act on their baser instincts.
Comment about Brexit gleaned from social media – Today, Brexit Day. Tomorrow, United Kingdom closing down sale, please apply to the liquidator Mr S Javid, 11 Downing Street, London, England (preferred currencies are American dollars and Chinese Yuan.)
The thing with the coronavirus is : how much does the chinese lie ? Hopefully it’s a somewhat classic virus, so they don’t lie much about the state of it because they don’t need to, and we get several hundred or thousand deads, and that’s that.
The thing is, it’s too soon to completely rule out an actually very nasty virus. Given the general underfunding of hospital all over the western world, that could end with something dramatic. That’s pretty unlikely for all sorts of reasons, but let’s hope it’s not the new spanish flu.
For Brexit, it might be good for the EU on the long run, or it could be horrible. Too soon to tell, but the UK isn’t a particulary big loss due to how actively problematic it often was. English might have a lot of problem however, let’s hope they will manage.
For the impeachment, republicans are a death cult since quite a bit of time. The electoral system being what it is, there’s little hope of improvement, and democrats don’t seem ever likely to have the galls to dismantle the system even if they gain a majority able to do so.
@FlyByKiwi,
Very true about the racist shit coming up because of the coronavirus. It provides a nice convenient fig leaf of “health concerns” for racist shitheads to show their true colours.
Following the impeachment stuff. TBH I’m so angry and scared I don’t even have words.
The Republican argument is literally that the President is above the law. They’re just going to go ahead and cement that. The Trump regime’s crimes are already in genocide territory, I’m absolutely terrified of what happens in another year or two. Or four. Or ten. Are we going to see the 13th amendment rescinded? The 19th? You know that’s what these slimebags want.
I pray that we have the collective guts and coordination to pull off a general strike if we have to. I don’t see anything else getting the Republicans out of power at this point – certainly not election results, even if they allow Trump to lose this year’s election.
IDK, I expected this but I’m still going to have trouble sleeping tonight.
Yes- racist shit, like
Are you assuming the Chinese government is lying? The people in Wuhan? Sure seems like they are facing it head on.
Because if it’s government lying, well then, we here in the US are leading on that one.
@Cyborgette
I’m nervous as well. Even without repeals the courts can cause a lot of harm just by very selectively interpreting the amendments. For example, the 13th still says slavery can be a punishment, courts could use it as a punishment for minorities and dissidents and we get gulags.
Ugh, elsewhere…
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/939kmv/us-coast-guard-officer-facing-gun-charges-researched-how-to-rid-us-of-the-jews-court-docs-reveal
I’m at the point of having no hope for the future. How do we get ourselves out of this?
I’m so scared that this way they’ve been treating the impeachment and the constitution in general (emoluments, anyone?) is going to set an even worse precedent than the ones we’ve been setting for all these years, and that’s really saying something.
The coronavirus is terrifying, and I’m especially concerned with how this administration will handle it if it keeps getting more and more serious like it could (and I’m not saying it’s not serious already).
Re: Brexit. I’m sorry you’re all going through this, it must be terrifying.
In Yutolia land, some of you may remember I have been dealing with a stalker situation. I ended up having to switch all of my prescriptions to a completely different company, which was a huge pain, because even though I haven’t seen this guy for a long time (I switched to another branch of the store for awhile), they still haven’t fired him, and someone was going into the system and changing the approvals on my prescriptions. It happened 5 times in row. I haven’t had any problems since switching. Unfortunately I can’t prove he’s doing this – the company was very evasive about who had access and if they could see which employee made a change, and the police aren’t taking it seriously because he hasn’t shown up at my house yet.
Grrrrrrr….
But in good news, I get to sing for the opening session of the Colorado legislature on the 24th!! I’m so excited!!
Congratulations, VP!!
Ok, never mind!!! Just hadn’t updated the right way, sorry, I’ll be quiet!
Hey, anybody have a reliable place to go learn about the impeachment proceedings? I have to use my boyfriend’s computer and I haven’t been able to keep up for awhile. All the sites I would normally use, beside this one, either haven’t been posting about this, or haven’t been posting at all.
@VP & Moggie: Congrats to you both.
A personal tragedy hit my husband’s family recently. My sister-in-law was hit by a car, and died as a result. She was 66 years old, and had only about a month to go before retirement. This is obscene! My husband was closer to her than to any of his other five siblings. On top of that, she was the main caretaker for her 92 year old father.
I’ve followed Brexit loosely. It seems to me, for the average UK citizen, it would be better to remain a part of the EU.
On the impeachment: It’s as I expected. I’m so disgusted, I don’t know how to put it into words.
Coronavirus: We’ve been through numerous viral scares over the last 15 years or so. Bird flu, swine flu, H1N1, etc. I don’t think it will be a problem in the US. Probably not in Europe, either. Which is not to diminish its lethality in China.
@Random Q: I suggest the online Washington Post.
Hey, you’re not a Q follower, are you? Well, I guess it’s none of my business if you are or aren’t.
You guys know that according to the CDC, influenza has caused 12,000 – 61,000 deaths in the US annually since 2010? The big difference depends on how virulent particular strains are and how successful the scientists are at guessing which strains are going to be a big problem months before “flu season,” so they can make the vaccines.
Note that we do not get all terrified of the flu unless it’s an unusually virulent strain.
I’m not saying that we might not lose some people to the corona virus, but it’s very unlikely to be as much as the normal influenza deaths. Scientists are already making progress on the vaccine, so that worst case scenario is that everyone is going to need to add another vaccination to the list. So the anti-vaxxers will have something to be afraid of, but most of us won’t.
Thanks (?) to the Vice article, the MGTOW (men getting triggered over women [not what -they- call it]) subreddit has been quarantined.
On reddit, a quarantined sub is still available but cannot be a default, cannot be part of /r/all, and must be explicitly visited. An unknown or unauthenticated user will be asked if they really wish to go there. i think it’s also removed from the search engine, too. In short, it drastically cuts down the visibility of the subreddit.
I just read that mgtow is now quarantined on reddit! Took a while but finally.