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Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County – where the launch site is located – insisted that anyone who wanted to witness the event at the Kennedy Space Center should do so without worry, despite advice from NASA to watch remotely.
"We are not going to keep the great Americans that want to come watch that from coming here," Ivey said on Friday, calling on people to "come here just like you have for all the other beautiful launches we've had. And enjoy it."
If NASA is telling people to not come here and watch the launch, that's on them. I'm telling people what I believe as an American. And so NASA has got their guidelines, and I got mine.
Ivey – an ally of US President Donald Trump, who has also questioned Covid-19 containment measures in some states – didn't entirely dismiss fears of the lethal virus, however, advising that launch-watchers should practice "family social distancing" and remain in small groups.
[...] NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a news conference earlier on Friday that "we don't want an outbreak," voicing concerns that hundreds of thousands of spectators could flock to the space center to see the launch, risking further spread of the coronavirus.
"The challenge that we're up against right now is we want to keep everybody safe," Bridenstine said. "And so we're asking people not to travel to the Kennedy Space Center, and I will tell you that makes me sad to even say it. Boy, I wish we could make this into something really spectacular."
Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX – which partnered with NASA for the mission, providing its Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rockets to bring two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) – said much the same, asking people to "be there for the ride with us," but "in spirit more so than in physical space."
So, the Sheriff wouldn't arrest you, but there are other law enforcement organizations that might look at things differently. Being in a jail cell in close quarters with others compounds the risk of coming down with COVID-19. And, even if you were not arrested, you could still get infected (or be an asymptomatic carrier yourself) and transmit it to others who would return to who-knows-where.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:21PM (40 children)
"And, even if you were not arrested, you could still get infected (or be an asymptomatic carrier yourself) and transmit it to others who would return to who-knows-where."
The problem with this line of thinking at the end is that typical Americans simply do not give a shit about other people getting something potentially deadly. Americans only care about themselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:24PM (9 children)
Americans don't even care about themselves. They elected Trump, and they're about to do it again.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:46PM (3 children)
Correction: More Americans did not vote to elect him. A hold-over from slave times allowed him to steal the election.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:49PM (2 children)
The first amendment?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:16PM
Electoral Collage
Homo Floridensis: "Hey, watch this! Oh, hold my beer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @07:36PM
Don't worry, Trump may be a fascist but he is ALL ABOUT people's right to publicly display their stupidity ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:58PM
Hat tip from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch to the Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:12PM (3 children)
As a white cisgendered male, I was tired of the prior eight years of Administration who cared about everybody else but me. It kinda sucks when the shoe's on the other foot, doesn't it? Bring me a Democrat who cares about all of us - me included - and I'll consider them but Biden ain't that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:43PM (1 child)
You should work toward expanding your duocracy with more parties, so that your government can better serve a plurality of opinions.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2020, @11:59PM
You sound like a non-American. The problem with your proposal is that it's completely impossible, thanks to Duverger's Law. Our election system prevents more than two dominant parties from existing at any given time; this is a necessary consequence of plurality voting (aka "first past the post"), which is used at the national level exclusively, and also in most other lower-level elections nationwide.
Other countries like those in Western Europe don't have this problem because they don't work the same way: they generally have approval voting or proportional representation. For the latter, people vote for the party they like. If there's 10 parties, and Party A gets 40% of the votes, Party B gets 30%, Party C gets 20%, Party D 10%, and the rest nothing, then the seats in parliament are allocated this way: 40% to Party A (which they can fill with the members of their choice), 30% to party B, etc. This is why other democratic countries don't have only two main parties, and their parties also come and go over time. (You can look up approval voting on Wikipedia.)
It is possible, of course, for us to elect a 3rd party, but that's pretty hard because votes for "3rd parties" are considered "wasted votes" because they take away from the other two, and effectively become a vote for one of the two main parties. So this only changes very rarely; the last time was when the Whig Party died out, and the Democratic-Republican party split into the two parties we have today. That was way back in the mid-1800s. If one of the parties pisses off people so much that it doesn't get enough votes to survive, a new party will rise up somehow, the unpopular one will go extinct, and we'll be right back to having 2 parties for generations.
So, the only way we can change our "duocracy" is to change our election system, and I'm not talking about the Electoral College either (that only affects the Presidential election anyway), we'd have to eliminate Plurality voting altogether and adopt something different. This is not a trivial task, and would require a new Constitutional Amendment. Here's a Quora link [quora.com] discussing this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @10:13PM
Poor snowflake.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:36PM (14 children)
I think it's safe to say that, in San Diego at least, everybody's starting to think this is total bullshit, and I agree even though I still wear PPE and disinfect. Fucking nobody except for the most extreme elderly and people who have to for work are wearing masks anymore. I was cautious because lockdowns were unprecedented in my lifetime but as it turns out this is just another swine or bird flu being exploited for political reasons and the people are fucking furious now that they see that people aren't collapsing around them left and right and there is no change in hospital load (I have a couple friends in the medical field and they confirm this, though they did note that some shipments of PPE destined for their hospitals have been redirected to other locations by FEMA and other agencies).
That leaves governors with 2 major choices amidst the increasing protests and civil disobedience: Save face by more quickly rolling back the restrictions, or double-down for your Chinese globalist masters because FUCK TRUMP! and risk being recalled (or worse). Newsome believe it or not I think is going with the former, tyrants like Whitmer are going with the latter.
Cleaner counties, beachfront or not, are not going to live like caged animals just because the third-world filth infesting L.A. and New York City are spreading this disease because they choose to live like caged animals in the first place.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:47PM (10 children)
Heh. Just wait till this starts reaming out Trump Country. I give it 2-4 weeks before the Deep South starts dropping like flies.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 03 2020, @09:54PM (9 children)
I've seen a bit of squalor in the South, but I've never seen 12 tubercular illegals shitting in a single bucket in a piss-soaked 200 square-foot basement like I did in L.A. And those weren't temporary stash-houses, either. Those people chose to live that way until they were evicted.
At least a hillbilly has good enough sense to shit in the bushes and wipe his ass with a few leaves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:21PM (7 children)
At least a hillbilly has good enough sense to shit in the bushes and wipe his ass with a few leaves.
Half the deal is knowing which leaves not to use, and clearing the area of snakes first
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:56PM (6 children)
Eh? I though that's how Hillbillies do it, clean the area of snakes... by taking a dump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @11:14PM (2 children)
That ain't how ya do it. Snakes is good eatin'!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @12:18AM (1 child)
Sir, that ain't a snake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @01:00AM
Yea, I think that works too.. they put anything in their mouth, even family's "snake"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:37AM (2 children)
Reminds me of this morning when I took a big Trump. I felt so good it made me realize just how wonderful this country will feel when we get rid of that big fat turd in the White House.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 04 2020, @02:08PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:16PM
Good for you, get that poop pile outta the White House!
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Monday May 04 2020, @12:14AM
Is that the name of an Austin lounge act?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
One's attitude may change if you have a relative, someone close to you, or someone close to you ends up dying from this thing. Then you might think about all the motherfuckers crying out "MY FREEDUMS!" and consider that every one of them can take some of that blood onto their hands.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 04 2020, @04:21PM
Or it might not change.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 04 2020, @04:54PM
Life is short. Are you going to live it, or are you going to quiver in fear that it will end? If you want to quiver, please stay in the privacy of your own home, and quiver. And, oh yeah, stop displaying your cowardice on the intartubez for all the rest of us to see.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @11:22PM (14 children)
On the spectrum between safety and liberty, most Americans lean towards liberty.
With all the outpouring of charity that's been flowing from Americans to other Americans, I can't believe anyone could honestly say that Americans care only for themselves. Many (not all) of us will give profusely of our time, our money, our energy to help others.
But we won't give up our rights. We really, really hate being told what to do. It's a cultural thing. We are not descended from fearful men.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @11:41PM (12 children)
But half the people only do what the guy on TV tells them to do. They would be completely lost if they weren't told what they are supposed to be outraged ab out this week. They are constantly being told to fear and loathe brown people, for instance, and they do. I have a neighbor who is outraged at the Michigan governor, just outraged, and you know what? He lives over 1000 miles away from there! Why the fuck should he care what the Michigan governor does or say, but he does because the guy on TV tells him how outraged he should be.
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Sunday May 03 2020, @11:51PM (4 children)
I find it hard to believe a TV channel is constantly telling people to "fear and loathe brown people".
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @12:21AM
Sorry, I'm sure some of them are good people but mostly drug dealers and rapists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @12:32AM
Don't you get Fox where you live?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @03:39AM
Guess you don't ever watch Faux News
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @05:42PM
He thinks that because those TV channels have this program called the local news where they show pictures of the people who are arrested every day for robberies, muggings, stabbings, and shooting their fellow citizens. We're not supposed to notice if they're brown.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 04 2020, @07:22AM (6 children)
You're flirting with stupid there.
On the one hand, we have people out there telling the "man on the TV" to go fuck himself. But, you claim they only know to do what the man on the TV tells them to do. Which is it?
If the man on TV is telling me to fear and loathe brown people - it almost has to be a liberal/leftist/progressive/Democrat sumbitch telling me to fear. You and yours controls main stream media in this country.
And, Michigan is just about 1000 miles away from me, as well. Gretchen is pissing me off, too. Why? BECAUSE THIS WHOLE CONTINENTAL US IS MY HOME!! That's kinda what "America" is all about, we're one big happy family. Well, happy family if we ever get rid of the CTRL-Left fascists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @05:03PM (5 children)
And the reason that a lot of people hold your kind of political philosophies and "principles" in such low esteem is that you'll be angered and outraged by a completely new topic in a month or so, and it will be exactly the same topic that the man on TV tells you to be outraged about. Remember how mad you were about the imperial presidency of Obama, but you don't give a shit about how Trump has taken it three orders of magnitude worse? Remember how power-mad Obama was using Executive Orders to "by pass the Constitution"? Remember how mad you were at Obama for all the golf he played? Now the man on TV tells you that you should be mad at the people who say it is unconstitutional for Trump to mis-appropriate funds because they hate America?
And yes, the man on TV tells you to fear and loathe brown people. You should use this as a moment of self-awareness if you haven't noticed that. The people who are crossing the border are drug dealers, murderers, terrorists, rapists, and just all around "bad hombres". It is perfectly fine to cage their children and turn them away when they ask for help, which is of course against the international conventions to which we belong.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 04 2020, @05:14PM (4 children)
Thanks for the reminder. Next month I'm on concentration camp duty. Gotta keep them brown babies caged up, don't you know? When Obama set those cages up, you weren't whining then, were you? Only when Trump appears to be responsible do you whine and snivel about the cages.
But, Trump is orders of magnitude worse than Obama - because - uhhh - because you say so, right?
And, we've gone round and round over those conventions. MEXICO is failing to meet it's obligations under those conventions, not the US. You know, that bit about "the first country" to which those "refugees" come to? Mexico passes it's obligations on to us, and we're the bad guys?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @06:07PM (3 children)
You've gotta be a special kind of stupid to think Trump is not orders of magnitude worse than Obama. I guess you really are a racist piece of shit, you've just been desperately trying to hide that fact. Sadly such idiocy is not something you can hide, it oozes out in little ways.
Here is some food for thought for you fucked up capitalist apologists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 04 2020, @06:28PM
I think rather the other way around. A huge thing people keep forgetting, is that the media won't let Trump get away with a Ukrainian phone call, but they will let Obama get away with assisting drug lords (particularly, the Sinaloa Cartel) with murdering 200+ Mexican and US citizens.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 04 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)
That's not a whole lot of food for thought: it's been blatantly obvious for years that both parties are idiots when it comes to taxation. For the most part, the two have offset most of each other's ills. And that helps to explain why it would be near catastrophic if either party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate for more than 8 years running. One party would tax us to death, and the return would be near worthless. The other party would nearly end taxation, and the infrastructure would fall apart. If you're not partisan, you probably realize that both parties are ignorant, and just pandering to their bases.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @11:02PM
"One party would tax us to death, and the return would be near worthless."
God DAMN you're stupid. The US used to have way higher taxes, through the GOP neoliberal policies along with DNC complicity the taxes on the wealthy have been dropped repeatedly while shifting the burden on to the lower and middle class. Programs that the lower classes depended on were shut down, and the US has been in a death spiral ever since.
You're just too fucking dumb to comprehend because you're brainwashed with "taxes baaaad" paired with the most selfish politics which benefit the super wealthy. You have glimmers of realization that are instantly buried in your partisan propaganda.
Hell, just the amount of whinging about minimum wage increases and protests against racist policing blow apart your attempt at centrism.
Get fucked you selfish cunt.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday May 04 2020, @03:24AM
mod parent +1 optimistic