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New Zealand police arrest pair trying to enter Auckland with ‘large amount’ of KFC:
The men were arrested after allegedly trying to flee from police near the Auckland border. When their car was searched, police said they found a large quantity of KFC, as well as the cash and a number of empty ounce bags.
The arrest struck a chord with New Zealanders – especially Aucklanders, who have spent a month in a strict level four lockdown that does not allow restaurants to open or residents to order takeaway food.
[...] After the KFC arrest, a police spokesperson said “officers noticed a suspicious looking vehicle travelling on a gravel road, and upon seeing the police car, the vehicle did a U-turn and sped off trying to evade police.
[...] A breach of the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act can result in imprisonment for up to six months; or a fine of up to $4,000.
The men will appear in court for breaching the health order, and police said further charges were likely.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:20PM (127 children)
This will go down in history as a great mass hysteria event, exceeding things like the idiotic satanic panic of the '80s, or the reds-under-the-beds scare of the '40s and '50s.
The objectively identified mortality/long-term morbidity profile of this disease is absolutely dwarfed by the other kinds of diseases on which we've justified mandatory vaccinations, and yet we're running around slapping lockdowns and all sorts of weirdly arbitrary rules in place, the net effect of which is also massively destructive and disruptive.
Collective madness, with a net negative result.
But lock those fuckers up! They might 'rona the Auckland!
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:34PM (36 children)
The red scare was justified though as we are now seeing.
The commies infiltrated our institutions and became so numerous over the decades as they consolidated power that they now OPENLY attack freedom and America and promote shitty socialism/communism. OPENLY, and attack anyone who disagrees that our country is worth preserving and does not want a Maoist cultural revolution.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:42PM (35 children)
If you think you got commies in the US, you went off the far right deep end long ago...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:10PM (26 children)
The goal is NOT to end up as a shitty Euro-style country. Hence, the desire to NOT let it get as bad as them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:16PM (25 children)
Yeah, shitholes like Finland and Sweden and Norway and Germany with their...their...fuckin', universal healthcare and lower maternal mortality rates than the US and shit. Total hellholes, right? Thank Republican Jesus that'll never happen here and people will continue to die of treatable conditions because a $5 vial of insulin costs $700 and stuff.
Fuck. Off.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:50PM (10 children)
And yet... and yet... immigrants still choose to come to America in large numbers. Do they not know how AWFUL it is here? Why is no one telling them? Why, in America, people DIE IN THE STREETS, WRITHING IN AGONY because hospitals aren't free. Oh wait, THEY ARE. Just go to the ER and by law you cannot be turned away.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:39PM (6 children)
Yes, lots of immigrants come to America. The majority of those are doing so from countries that have an overland route to the US. They come to the US based on the promise of US life that your culture ships around the world via the media (white picket fences, friends catching up in coffee shops near Central Park etc). Most of them don't realise that life is much harder in the US than most people have told them. It's NOT because the US is the greatest country in the world (which it most definitely isn't unless you're counting the number of bombs you have).
Here's a thought experiment - if it were just as easy for Central and South American people fleeing persecution to make it to Canada instead of the US, do you think most would still pick the US, or the country with a better safety net and protections for lower income people?
Interesting that the majority of middle-Eastern refugees make their way to Europe rather than the US. Is that perhaps because Europe is closer?
Here's something odd. Almost all people trying to arrive in Australia from Asia by boat are Asian!
Strange - countries like New Zealand (which many ultra-rich people are trying to move to) and the Scandinavians have very low levels of 'illegal' border crossings by people trying to get in. Maybe that isn't because they're shitholes - more likely it's because they're REALLY FRICKEN HARD TO GET TO!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:47PM (5 children)
So, I hear you're saying that the US is both better than a lot of shitholes, and accessible.
Like, even better than Mexico, which is way less shitholey than a lot of other places (such as Haiti, to take a case from recent news).
Dang, Mexico has some pretty nice spots, the USA must be freakin' great!
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:07AM (1 child)
Try reading harder. I said that the US is perceived by prospective immigrants to be better than where they are, based on the media they see.
To be honest, large parts of the US probably are better than some of the places these people are trying to leave. But don't be so silly as to claim that all of the US must be better than all of Mexico because some Mexicans come to the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:22AM
Mexicans aren't even coming anymore, I'm pretty sure there's more returning than coming here. Central/South America is where the migrants are coming from.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:20AM (2 children)
You skipped a bit of Mexican immigration policy. Like, Mexicans don't welcome immigrants like US Democrats do. Immigrants are tolerated, if they don't intent to stay long in Mexico.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:26AM
Pretty much all of latin america has a similar policy: invest $XX thousand USD in a local company and you get in. Not a bad deal for USians, as cost of living is low enough to live better than the US for cheaper than anywhere outside of a slum.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:27AM
I hear the disaster refugees are welcomed in Cancun if they come with money, particularly if their family name is Cruz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:40PM
Jeebus Crisp you dumb, the main draw is the petro dollar where a minimum wage job lets an immigrant send home enough money for their family. Purely the exchange rate which is due to US explotive imperialism, not amazing business acumen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:27AM (1 child)
You don't get turned away, you just get in line and wait your turn for triage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:04AM
So, business as usual?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:46PM (13 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:29PM
And, the US is at the bottom for infant mortality too. Source, that bastion of commies, the CIA and their "CIA World Factbook". Probably a biased source, but biased in favor of the US which still comes out at the bottom.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:26AM (11 children)
You're right, but also just being stupid. The US still has an extremely low rate of maternal mortality, especially when you consider that it is waaay more culturally diverse than any of those countries that are above it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:31AM (10 children)
What does the cultural makeup have to do with infant mortality? Please explain.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:58AM (4 children)
Do those lovely people of color (excluding assimilated Asians, the "other white people") take care of their pregnancies as well as the other races? No.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:27AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:15AM
They probably would, if they could afford it. Because whether the only doc at your disposal is dancing around your bed with some rattles or whether you can't afford a real one, what is the difference?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:01PM (1 child)
Okay, and since this is a culture thing and culture is learned behavior, the solution iiiiiis...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:46PM
MOAR RACISM! Yeah, that'll do it, that'll fix things right up lickity split!
Why even bother replying to such racist garbage? You think such hate filled people are just a few logical leaps from not being terrible?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:30AM (4 children)
When everyone in a country shares the same culture (and likely similar genetics), you can have reasonable expectations about the age, hygiene, medical literacy, etc. of new parents. When you have immigrants, 2nd gen., whacko cultists, etc. literally everywhere you can't make any assumptions, and you are going to have way more issues than a monocultural state. Then you factor in underage and unplanned births, abuse/incest, rape, and other things, you get a much livelier mix.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @04:35AM (1 child)
And this is your argument for why the USA is the best country in the world?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:20AM
Yeah, because that's totally the argument I was making. Keep fucking that strawman, incel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @03:58PM (1 child)
You know damn little about pregnancy don't you? Out of 9 long months, how often you think a woman should visit the fucking doctor if nothing is wrong? Doctors don't even wanna see you in the first trimester.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:15PM
And where do you see the strawman that you decided to set up this time?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:50PM (4 children)
Yeah, right....antifa rioting and burning down cities aren't real commies....
Real Commies, like real communism, has never been tried yet.
I guess that Patrisse Cullors isn't a "real communist" but just a "trained Marxist."
Lefty mindgames are never-ending.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:18PM (2 children)
We are fucking with you....!! Wooooooh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:15AM (1 child)
I know. Your mother told me last night!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday September 24 2021, @06:31AM
You can talk to the dead? That's quite impressive.
It even makes me look past your necrophilia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:52PM
Maybe.
However, I'm excited about finally being able to see if there's a Posadist road to socialism in a few years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:20PM (2 children)
If you think you got commies in the US, you went off the far right deep end long ago...
Have you been living in a cave the last few years?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:03PM (1 child)
More likely he's had his head up his ass for a few *decades...*
Remember, "Communist!" is a snarl word 99 times out of 100 or more with these assholes. They wouldn't know an actual communist if one bit them. Plunk them down in the 1930s and they'd be shrieking "Communist!" at the very people who've ensured that they, in the modern world, have things like "weekends" and "OSHA regulations" and so on.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:16PM
In the 1930's, those WERE actual communists. It wasn't until McCarthy and deep cold war that communism was really villified.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:39PM (60 children)
The toll from covid has actually been significantly higher than you claim and medical resources have been strained to the breaking point in many places. The stats on Polio were a bit less extreme than covid. It's easy to forget that now that people actually got their shots and polio faded away (though to this day there are people dealing with post-polio syndrome). By contrast, in the great Satanic Panic, no actual case of organized satanic ritual abuse was found.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:51PM (6 children)
What should that tell you about the covid stats? Does this actually feel more extreme than polio to you?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Tork on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:47PM
Ask Mitch McConnell about it. Serious.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:13PM (4 children)
I remember them claiming that just over a year ago, so Trump sent Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles, and Chicago converted the Merchandise Mart into an emergency COVID ward. All of them remained empty, because the whole "we're overwhelmed" story was bullshit.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:41AM (3 children)
You're not the only one who remembers that.
Do you also remember the whole: "We don't trust Trump's pharma buddies! The vax is a scam!" which turned into: "Follow the science! Take the vax, you anti-vaxers are killing us all!"
Oh yes, and also then: "Trump's travel bans are all racist, unnecessary moves to appease his nazifascist army!" followed by: "Lock all the things down, for the love of sweet baby Jesus!"
But I'm really glad that they followed the science, or we might have had a pandemic and logistical nightmares on our hands. Sure dodged a bullet there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:29AM (2 children)
The meme you read that off of left off the bit in-between about the Trump Administration pushing snake-oily health cures.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @04:54PM (1 child)
I didn't know that was a meme (rule 35 probably exists that says everything is) but I do remember a lot of prominent lefties going all vax-panic when the election was rumbling nearer and the FDA was starting to give the OK sign.
But I guess I didn't see anybody saying that the vaccine would turn you into a MAGAhead, so there's that.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:09PM
Mmm hmmm. And you probably saw a buncha spittle leaving the mouth of the broadcaster that told you that. That doesn't change the fact that the Trump Administration turded up its credibility about vaccine development numerous times. If you truly feel that 'prominent lefties' are responsible for vaccine hesitancy then you really should have been wagging your finger at the Trump Administration's mis-steps that gave the left such a powerful weapon to wield against the rights' voters.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:21PM (3 children)
To be fair, medical resources have been strained to the breaking point in many places due to funding cuts well before covid. All it needed was one big event to bring down the house of cards, and now we've got it.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:13PM
Funding cuts, and capitalism at work (always cheapening everything)- not a good recipe for healthy outcomes.
And lets toss in the legal system: fear and costs of malpractice suits and insurance, complications, confusion, and fear due to HIPAA and other laws and rules. Well intended laws, but many in healthcare don't understand them and generally shy away from anything that might border on privacy violations.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:31AM
It started further back than you imply. The first "Regional Medical Center" started things off. Since then, thousands of hospitals have been shut down because they couldn't compete with the hundreds of regional centers that replaced them. Tip of the hat to the Catholic orders that run their own hospitals - they haven't consolidated facilities nearly so thoroughly as their non-Catholic counterparts.
Every town and small city over ~8,000 - 10,000 should have their own hospital, even if it's mostly outpatient with 10 to 20 beds for inpatient services and emergency services. Instead, we routinely transport everyone 50 to 100 miles to a Regional Pathogen Concentration Center.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:12PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 5, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:22PM (17 children)
Please note the varied history and length of time it took to actually "eradicate" Polio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:18PM (12 children)
and
So... the polio vaccine, for a disease MUCH worse than COVID, took several years to go from initial development to widespread use. And even then, it turned out to have truly horrible side effects.
But the COVID vaccine, with MONTHS of testing, is perfectly safe, with absolutely no side effects, and anyone who even questions it is evil and should be locked up.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:49PM (1 child)
Well, gee. You mean scientists and virologists, etc have learned from the past and science has advanced?
Alert Galen and Hippocrates!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:00PM
Galen and Hippocrates -- nope, can't find any published papers [nih.gov] authored by that Hippo dude. Not sure what you could be referring to in terms of some kind of universally accessible body of scientific (in particular, medical) progress.
Make people cite something on PubMed when they make a medical claim. I bet you a lot of people have never heard about it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:49PM (5 children)
We've also had almost 70 years of medical progress since then. Let's look at a more recent example.
Can you tell me a bit more about the horrible side-effects and disasters that befell the rollout of the HPV vaccine [wikipedia.org]? No? Ah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:19PM (4 children)
Is human papillomavirus a coronavirus? No? Ah.
Meanwhile, dengue vaccine, as recently as 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengvaxia_controversy [wikipedia.org]
No doubt that we had 70 years of propaganda progress indeed; but as to medical progress, do understand that rising prices do NOT translate into better care.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:56AM (1 child)
Polio's not a coronavirus either, so why are you trying to compare it to COVID while simultaneously discarding HPV?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:02PM
Because NOT A SINGLE WORKING CORONAVIRUS VACCINE before COVID. Literally nothing to base the comparison on.
Except maybe this: https://www.petmd.com/cat/care/what-fiv-and-why-fiv-vaccine-no-longer-available [petmd.com]
Satisfied now?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:30AM (1 child)
Dengue also isn't a corona virus so Ah yourself. The Dengue vaccine is only authorized in the U.S. for people who have already had lab confirmed Dengue previously. That is exactly due to the issues your link talks about.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:58PM
You should not have touched THAT can of worms. Now that you have - welcome to the world of pain that is coronavirus vaccine failures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2829570/ [nih.gov]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8830483/ [nih.gov]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19122397/ [nih.gov]
https://www.petmd.com/cat/care/what-fiv-and-why-fiv-vaccine-no-longer-available [petmd.com]
We lost two young cats to FIP, so I had quite compelling reason to research the theme to exhaustion.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7943455/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7291966/ [nih.gov]
Human coronaviruses, no more tractable that FIP.
Not a single working one before COVID, despite 3+ decades of attempts. Then COVID came, magic happened and the problem got solved in a month. Supposedly. You wish.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:48AM (2 children)
One particular production line of polio vaccine turned out to have unacceptably high rates of serious side effects and was ordered off the market. We've learned a lot since then. I was happy to see that the 2 commonly used vaccines in the U.S. contain no actual corona and so cannot cause the disease.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:28PM (1 child)
See, that's actually a problem. If it were distributed in bottles of Corona, a lot more people would be willing to chug it down. I'm sure it's a lot easier to swallow a microchip, than to have it forcibly injected into your arm.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:02PM
Oh dear sweet baby Jesus... you don't actually believe the microchip shit do you?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:57PM
The more interesting point I was trying to make was that Polio was not "eliminated" in the Americas until 1994. That's more than 4 decades after the first effective vaccine was created.
Also, there's still polio "in the wild". The only disease that seems to have been totally eradicated by mass vaccination in humans is Smallpox. There are some effective vaccines that keep several other bad ones at by, such as Polio, but they have not been eradicated. Then again, none of the others caused 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century.
Interesting page of deadly diseases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:48AM (3 children)
I was just a wee lad then - but it seems to me that the public's opinion wasn't all that tarnished. It was mandatory that we had our shots before starting school in 1961. I can't say how many years prior to 1961 they were mandatory, but I know that I had my shot because the school required it.
To put things in perspective, 3 members of the family in my parent's generation were stricken by polio. None in my generation. No siblings, no cousins, no second cousins, third cousins, no classmates. As far as I know, everyone in my generation in this country got the shot. This article helps with perspective - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/988756973/cant-help-falling-in-love-with-a-vaccine-how-polio-campaign-beat-vaccine-hesitan [npr.org]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:05PM (2 children)
And yet you had to be forced by your family to get the covid shot. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why was 5 year old you smarter than 65 year old you?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:16PM (1 child)
Did 5 year old Runaway even have a choice?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @06:25PM
'Zumi attributes me with god-like powers. She probably thinks that I was responsible for that whole Vietnam War thing. Probably thinks that I assassinated John, Bobby, and Martin. Fear the demigod, Runaway!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:31PM (24 children)
Any shortage is a business issue, not a medical or technical one. We need the money to keep the financial markets afloat, not enough left over for your hospitals and medical staff. 120 billion dollars will buy you 30,000 ventilators or 6 billion doses of the vax, more or less. A demand for proper financing and transparent administration will ensure plenty of supplies for everybody worldwide. The whole issue is one of human incompetence and corruption, worse than the virus itself. Almost like being killed by friendly fire.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:11PM (23 children)
Here's a few billion dollars, kindly double the ICU capacity in the U.S. Oh, and I'll need that by noon tomorrow, we good? No? You mean you can't wave your magic wand and poof a few thousand more educated health professionals into existence in 18 hours? Well I'll be damned!
While I'll readily agree that at least in the U.S. we could be doing a hell of a lot better with healthcare, even a fully socialized system has to be optimized for utilization and may be subject to strain under extreme conditions.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:47PM (2 children)
A list of the 50 countries with the highest number of hospital beds per 1000 people. Supports your statement. Not a lot in common within the top 50. But, the US doesn't make the list, so whatever it is about the US, the US is shite at providing for its citizens.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-hospital-beds-per-capita.html [worldatlas.com]
Ah, here it is. The list of top 15 countries for spending on military. US on top in a category all its own in that one. This alone is sufficient to explain why the US is a shit hole country with a non-existent social safety net, crumbling infrastructure, and (in many cases worse than) 3rd world health outcomes and life expectancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday September 22 2021, @04:35PM (1 child)
The U.S. military is the price the U.S. taxpayer pays to keep ungrateful snobs around the world alive and more-or-less free. Do you need any further proof than Afghanistan?
The cost of healthcare in the U.S. is high, and if there were more beds it would be even higher. There are many reasons:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:34PM
The US is like a pyromaniac fireman who starts fires around the world, pretends to be the hero putting them out and the victim when burned.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:50PM (19 children)
We are under a chronic condition now, it's all corruption at this point. This is hardly extreme. Business is moving fairly normally here. But scheduled procedures are hard to come these days because somebody "might need the ventilator". It's bogus. It's all for the love of money
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:24AM (18 children)
Meanwhile, in the southeast I see articles about a man needing ECMO but there is none to be had and a man having a heart attack in Alabama who has to be shipped to Mississippi for treatment because there were no beds in Alabama for him.
Grady memorial and others have been on full diversion for a while.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:42AM
That's my whole point. There's plenty of money to ensure everyone is supplied, it's just being misspent to prop up the financial markets, instead of supplying hospitals training staff and paying peoples' bills, to the tune of 120 billion every month for the last two years, not including the trillions (they say 700bil) spent on bailing out the repo market [catalyzewm.com]. Note, timing is everything. All talk about shortages and debt are absolute garbage until this is addressed. Why should we let one totally non-productive sector of the economy profit so much in contradiction to all others during a crisis? Everything we suffer is through mismanagement. Our denial only makes it worse and drags it out
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:55AM (6 children)
Specifics required to explain why he was transported across state lines. Wadley Regional Medical Center in Texarkana routinely gets Arkansas residents, along with some Oklahoma and Louisiana residents, simply because it is the closest medical facility. There may be some here who don't understand that Alabama and Mississippi are neighboring states, and that a medical center across the state line might be the closest available care even under normal circumstances.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:16AM
The article I read was explicit that there were several closer places that had no room. Here's a report [cnn.com] on the incident.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:34AM (4 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:23AM (3 children)
That doesn't explicitly say that any of the 43 hospitals actually had ICU facilities for heart patients. "The level of care he required". Interesting choice of words, actually.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:47AM (2 children)
Oh, yeah that's real sus. Are most of the ICUs around there specialized in dental? 🙄
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @08:58AM (1 child)
I dunno what they might specialize in. I know that burn victims anywhere around here are routinely airlifted to Children's in Little Rock, or to Shriner's in Shreveport. Heart patients are routinely transported (not necessarily airlifted) to St. Vincent in Hot Springs. Yeah, hospitals do kinda specialize, especially university hospitals. If you have all of the story concerning that heart patient, I'll be happy to listen. The article blames COVID patients, but it isn't clear that the blame is entirely justified.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:27PM
Which means they're full of shit, a propaganda piece, unless they're talking about the refusal to get the vax. And specialized hospitals are irrelevant to the fact that there is plenty of money available to build adequate facilities wherever they are needed in short order. After two years of this, all shortages are caused by bullshit
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 22 2021, @03:12PM (9 children)
Couple interesting observations about 'bama and the data at healthdata.org
The covid death rate was about zilch from spring until August. Now its about two dozen dead per day. But it was one to three dozen dead per day from May of 2020 until Jan of 2021. Propaganda/news is always focused on the recent but I wonder how coverage compares to the recent "crisis" to most of the year of 2020.
There was a spike of deaths in 'bama in late Jan/Early Feb this year that was about five times the current death rate. So if delta is a real threat and not a nothingburger the "crisis" could predictably be five times worse than the screaming propaganda at present. So thats gonna be shrill.
On the other hand the peak infection rate in 'bama for the previous peak was around new years around 11K people per day being infected. The population of 'bama is not that big and given the extremely high asymptomatic rate of covid, the entire state could be infected in little more than a month. Anyway, the peak death rate was about a month later. As for the Delta infection rate peak, that was way back around Aug 1st, so peak death rate "should have been" a couple weeks ago, but instead it seems to be now?
"Strike while the iron is hot" so the propaganda is going to be hot and heavy about 'bama for a few more weeks before rates naturally drop back to zero or so.
Comparing the graphs of infection, vaxing, masking, and social distancing they seem completely unrelated. I'm sure in the lab masks always work and it can be proven in the lab, but in practice it seems to have no effect. Masking certainly has no effect on infection rates, the infection graphs look identical at 70% masking and at 25% masking. The infection peaks before and after vax appear identical, as if vax has no effect on the disease. Social distancing graphs (based, I think, on cellphone data?) also show no impact on infection rates.
There is a huge aspect of cowardice and acceptance that isn't discussed. Clearly, outside a lab, in the real world, nothing any human being can do in 'bama, or likely the entire world, has any effect on the disease. Its just wasted effort, security theater style, on a grand scale. Lockdowns didn't work, masks didn't work, social distancing didn't work, the vax doesn't work, hating your neighbor doesn't work, using big government and big corporations doesn't work... Some areas, like where I live, are much braver than crappy New Zealand, so we're living our lives like normal for many months now and we generally ignore the fearful propaganda. I think we're moving to a "Civil War" style thing where we're gonna self select to the people who live in terror and demand everyone play along, and the people who bravely live life. Certainly, for people older than 80 or whom are very sick, its a more dangerous life than it was before, but better to live in danger than endlessly cower in fear in front of a TV. Being scared all the time just means you gonna die scared, its not gonna save your life or extend your life. People in New Zealand, or at least their government serf owners, must be some of the shittiest cowards I've ever heard of.
As far as I know, on a micro scale, the only procedure or process, under human control, that DOES help individuals survive covid on a small individual scale is being not obese and having decent cardiovascular health. So hit the gym, as I do. A good workout feels good, too. Just got back from the gym, in fact. Get out there and live. Let the cowards be cowards and everyone else can inherit the earth.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @04:26PM (8 children)
Are you planning to keep spinning like that? If you are, I'll wrap some copper wire around you and see if we can get an alternate energy program going.
The vax works, but only if you take it. A lot of people haven't because they're afraid it'll improve their 5G reception or make the dog lick itself excessively or something. Similarly the mask helps (not as much as the shot), but only if you actually wear it over your mouth and nose rather than as a chin diaper.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:14PM (3 children)
So, here we are, still arguing amongst ourselves instead of demanding that available money be redirected towards staffing and equipment, and clear honest education. This is why we suffer any shortages. What ever happened to loosening up the patents so more countries can make their own vax? Two months of bailout money will vax the whole world
It has been two years, what's up??
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:29PM (2 children)
At least here in the U.S. we have all the vax we need. What we're missing is willing arms to put it in.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 22 2021, @05:37PM (1 child)
Yeah, there are ways to deal with that too. It would be self defense to make space to isolate all the Typhoid Marys and give them a jab.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @09:42PM
Blow darts would be fun!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 23 2021, @06:56PM (3 children)
That's my point about the problem. They only work in the lab or when TV presenters claim so. Just not in 'bama. Believe science and look at the graphs.
"Go to church and pray harder like the good people do and then everything will be better", except now we're talking about masks, isn't a viable scientific policy.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:49PM (2 children)
They work when they are worn. They do not work when jackasses run around spewing their disease everywhere. They are not perfect. Kinda like seat belts. Using one doesn't render you immortal, but your cousin's roommate's best friend's sister once got injured in a car crash while wearing a seatbelt is not a good reason to skip it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 23 2021, @08:37PM (1 child)
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm sure they work awesome in the lab, and when properly used by "professionals" like surgeons I guess.
I'm just saying they don't work as a public policy. The infection rate graphs in 'bama when everybody wore masks look the same as the infection rate graphs when nobody wears masks. Therefore a public policy of everyone wears masks is utterly ineffective and a waste of effort and even worse it provides a false sense of security.
AFAIK the graphs for seatbelt use are wildly different situation, and they do save lots of lives. I'm too lazy to look it up but I'd agree with you tentatively. A public policy of "wear seatbelts" seems to coincide with a massive decline in traffic death rates as I recall.
Your claim of the entire state of 'bama being an anecdote seem unlikely. Its a big state, the experiment was run semi-rigorously over a long time... The two graphs under different conditions look darn near identical (maybe fake data is being used?). If you're gonna claim its a mere anecdote that seems your responsibility to explain why, it seems like good solid experimental method and good solid data. OK lets say AL is an outlier. Lets choose Nevada because why not. Their alpha peak infection rate around new years was around 5000 people per day during eighty percent masking. Their delta peak was in late July and masking rate in mid july was forty percent. The upward slope of both peaks is indistinguishable, although the delta peak was only about 4/5 the size of the alpha peak despite half the population no longer wearing masks. So in both states, wearing masks seems to have no effect on either infection rate or total number of infections.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 23 2021, @09:54PM
I'd like to know where this mythical place in Alabama where everyone wears a mask is. I've never seen a unicorn in person!
I'm not claimint the entire state as an anecdote, I am talking about a particular news report (link was provided) where a guy ended up being sent to a hospital in another state to deal with a heart attack (apparently the 44th place contacted according to the report).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:12PM
Even the government "with COVID" numbers are around 1/10 of regular annual mortality.
When those resources were REDUCED to said point in the years prior, no magic disease is required to explain the completely natural breakdown.
Any worse-than-mild flu would do the same, if compounded with similar panic measures further hampering the use of what is left after the "optimizations".
(Score: 5, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:48PM (4 children)
And people dealing with long COVID-19 [cdc.gov] symptoms as well, many of which are invisible -- including fatigue, which exacerbates the invisibility, as people are less likely to go outside.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:04AM (3 children)
"Rediscovering" ages-old things as "new COVID symptoms" is beyond disgusting.
Here is what "long COVID" was called for 30+ years before COVID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
Here are 150 years of its history since discovery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chronic_fatigue_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
BTW, for your further education, the "loss of smell" as it was in 2019:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anosmia&oldid=916192336#List_of_causes [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by sjames on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:38AM (1 child)
There are conditions that resemble other conditions? You don't say!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:09PM
There are usual complications of respiratory viral infections. And then there are shameless fearmongers like you. What damn virus had caused your freaking condition?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday September 22 2021, @04:37AM
That's amazing! COVID-19 actually went *back in time* and caused those symptoms! This is way more important than some dumb epidemic!
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:50PM (14 children)
Sure, hospitals run out of ER beds all the time. All at the same time. All over the place.
Don't they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:55PM (11 children)
Yes. Bed shortage stories are literally an annual occurrence, they run these stories every year. And not everywhere, just the northern hemisphere. Australia will be strutting around pretending like it beat covid because it's warm out again in a month or so.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:05PM (10 children)
but not all the hospitals in a city, or state, at once..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @10:20PM (8 children)
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/10/thousands-of-patients-die-waiting-for-beds-in-hospitals-study [theguardian.com]
"Almost 5,500 patients have died over the past three years because they have spent so long on a trolley in an A&E unit waiting for a bed in overcrowded hospitals, a study by leading NHS doctors has found. ..."
10 Dec 2019
Si COVID n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:38PM (4 children)
I don't think you understand the argument, nor the magnitude of the problem. There's a difference between "it has happened somewhere before" and "it is happening almost everywhere at the same time."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:43PM
I don't think your scripted response is of any relevance. You obviously had not even attempted to read the linked article.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:07AM (2 children)
Your brother AC is on target. Those headlines have been in the news for most of my adult life. In one year, it's New York and NYC, the next year it's Cali and LA, and another year it's all of the central midwest, then maybe it's back to New York, and the following year it's the southeast.
The fact is, hospital bed availability has been decreasing in the US for AT LEAST 40 years. The number of medical professionals has been dropping as well. The only thing that increased for some years, were EMT services, but I think those have flattened, and maybe have began decreasing.
Every crisis, great or small has strained the system, for three decades or more. Hurricanes, tornados, forest fires, airliner crash, massive automotive pileups, train derailment, factory explosion, you name it - it becomes a health care crisis. Patients are shuffled from one hospital to another, with less serious injuries being transported 100s of miles, to leave room close at hand for those who won't survive that transport.
As an experiment you might do some Google searches, playing with the dates. Search for stories prior to 1980 about hospital bed shortages, then increment your search forward in time, one decade at a time. (keep in mind that internet search results get better with every decade advance - lots of news prior to 1990 has never been archived on the internet)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @03:24AM
Don't forget that the AMA keeps a cap on things like medical student numbers per faculty, thereby reducing new entrants to the profession, while more and more senior members exit early, or divert into specialty fields which mean that their involvement in general practice drops.
It's textbook rent-seeking behaviour, with the approval of the government.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @02:14PM
Well that explains why it's worldwide.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:28AM (2 children)
Couldn't possibly be from the conservative parties cutting funding from the NHS...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/boris-johnson-conservatives-nhs-funding [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:51AM (1 child)
https://www.health.org.uk/chart/chart-how-funding-for-the-nhs-in-the-uk-has-changed-over-a-rolling-ten-year-period [health.org.uk]
The real rate (i.e. inflation adjusted) has not been negative, for a very long time, if ever.
A couple of quotes:
You can also look at the most recent tax hikes specifically to support the NHS.
But this all came from some shady site called www.health.org.uk. What would they know? The Graun has informed us that there were massive cuts! That must be the truth!
Feh.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 22 2021, @07:53PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Going_to_Hurt [wikipedia.org]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 22 2021, @03:27PM
Its interesting to look at the actual statistical data out of Alabama and ignore the propaganda for a moment.
It seems in a sense that Delta is a nothingburger because its death rate is about 1/5 that of the first disease.
But, consider, last January in the first peak of death, elderly people would enter the hospital and promptly die, letting someone else re-use that nominal bed and nursing services (well presumably they clean the sheets between patients but you know what I mean). With the nothingburger Delta variant, 4/5 of the people who would have died last Jan are kinda sitting around alive filling that bed up. That's good for the 4/5 who get to live instead of die, but they gotta move "somewhere" or else they'll clog up the system.
This is what makes the propaganda rather tiresome and meaningless; The usual shrill shriekers are going to whine regardless of fatality rate; if the rate is higher, scream about the hospitals being empty as the morgue fills up, if the rate is lower, scream that the hospital is filling up with living people instead of bodies.
Note another aspect of the propaganda, if a hospital ER fills to capacity because of covid then Orange Man Bad Hate White People, but if it fills to capacity because of illegal aliens using the ER for free medical care, that's a holy obligation we should all feel very happy to pay for in fact we need more unvax'd immigrants because we need to fire all the whites whom are unvax'd because Orange Man Bad and White Man Bad and Jew Always Good. But its still an overly full hospital ER either way.
(Score: 1, Troll) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:00PM (1 child)
Yes, actually. It's very common for hospitals to run out of beds, defer ambulances to other hospitals, and have to queue patients in hallways or the "wrong" care units.
I might not be the best person for your argument though; the covid lockdown, not covid, killed my mom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:13AM
Yes, hospitals fill up their ER beds and patients have to be diverted to other hospitals. The can even be sent to hospitals a decent distance away. But these occurrences are on isolated instances or the result of local tragic events. It is not at all common for all hospitals to be in this situation [fiercehealthcare.com] (coincidence, I'm sure, but nine of the top 10 states in that list are run by Republican governors). It isn't common for it to be common for hospitals to need refrigerated semis because the bodies are stacking up before they can be moved out.
For the other person to suggest that since the COVID mortality rate is on the order of a few percent that this is not a problem truly doesn't understand the situation and/or can't (more likely, won't as it won't give the answer they want) do simple calculations, or even just look at historical trends.
I'm sorry for the loss of your mother.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @08:52PM (11 children)
Idiot. Look at the stats. They don't lie.
The number of deaths in NZ is a tiny fraction of what they would have been.
The local economy in NZ has not suffered nearly as much as people predicted.
You sir, are a mouth breathing moron who needed a proper education.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:01PM
New Zealand never has a bad flu season compared to the rest of the world, somehow they managed that in prior years without turning takeout chicken into contraband.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:35PM (2 children)
Oooh, are we playing the insults game? Yo' mama so fat when she got the 'rona they ventilate her with a shopvac!
But sure, let's talk facts (as if THAT weren't a fact! SICK BURN!) and see that the single most affected country in the whole fucking world (Peru) which has serious confounding factors affecting the availability of care and survival at altitude, has lost, per Johns Hopkins, under 0.7% of the population after COVID-19 went through the population like a buzzsaw. Nowhere else, not even Hungary, is close.
Sweden, which is the OOH NO LOCKDOWN SUPERBAD ALL GONNA DIE (remember them?) has a nationwide mortality to the 'rona of 0.14%, and a case fatality rate of around 1.3%. They lost more citizens last time yo' mama had bad gas! (Oooooh, hot sauce burn bad!)
(Ref.: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality [jhu.edu] )
This means that coronavirus is a couple of times more lethal than the 'flu, but not a couple of orders of magnitude more lethal, and nowhere near the kind of scale of lethality that the hyperventilators (they're borrowing your mom's shopvac! OOOOH!) try to paint.
(Ref.: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html [cdc.gov] )
If you actually believe the USA coronavirus figures, (there is ample reason to be suspicious of them, just like yo' mama's cooking! WHOOOO!) then prorated over the last 18 months of freakout, we arrive at a figure well under 10 times as lethal as seasonal influenza, on average and more like double or treble the bad flu years, depending on how you count.
But hey, it's all ( https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3101866/new-zealand-recession-coronavirus-lockdown-hits-economy [scmp.com] ) worth ( https://www.reuters.com/article/newzealand-economy-gdp-idUSKBN26605V [reuters.com] ) it ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_New_Zealand [wikipedia.org] ) just like when I paid yo' mama a nickel for round the world, back in the day!
TOUCHDOWN!!! (on yo' mama's asssss WOOHOOO!!!!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:43AM (1 child)
I insult you because your idiotic rantings demanded insulting.
You score nothing but a virtual goal in a virtual game you play in your little echo chamber of neurotic morons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:00AM
References, specific statistic, facts.
That's what you're short on.
Follow the science better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @09:46PM (1 child)
Parent said:
"The number of deaths in NZ is a tiny fraction of what they would have been."
How would you know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:40PM
Because we can draw graphs, interpolate and cross-reference with other countries, diseases, outbreaks, etc.
Jesus christ you people are fucking stupid....
I live here. The NZ papers show the data daily.
No wonder you are doing so well....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:02PM (4 children)
The stats do lie, and so do you.
What "a tiny fraction" means in shill math: the number of deaths in NZ is at least 90% of "what it would have been".
Will be educational to look at you when inflation eats the same "tiny fraction" of your shill salary.
The "would have been" as demonstrated by Sweden 2019 vs 2020:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ [statista.com]
No lockdowns, portraited by media as Teh Baddest, 10% increase in 2020 (after the 4% decrease the year prior), 2021 so far seems to have returned to no-COVID average.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:27PM (1 child)
You mentioned "shill salary". Where would one apply for one of these?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21 2021, @11:34PM
An "influencer marketing agency", obviously.
Some specifics for USA: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/technology/vaccine-lies-influencer-army.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @12:45AM (1 child)
I get it.
Stats don't work on conspiracy nuts high in the personality trait of neurosis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:13PM
Truly pathetic. The influencer marketing agency is wasting taxpayers money on you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 22 2021, @01:35AM
If there is a conspiracy behind lockdown, I hope it is this: to open people's eyes to alternatives to our ongoing Koyaanisqatsi [wikipedia.org].
No, people don't need to drive in to work every day.
No, you will not die if you can't go to restaurants 5 nights a week.
No, the world does not stop spinning if international air travel slows down.
Yes, we can control urban pollution - all we have to do is stop polluting.
Yes, we can significantly cut global CO2 emissions if we just decide to do it.
Maybe it is worth funding a little more extra capacity in the healthcare system, instead of running it like a JIT manufacturing [investopedia.com] operation?
I worked from home before my small long-distance company got bought by a big fish with offices in my local city. So, then, it was just expected by my new owner that I would show face in office 5 days a week. Even after the conservative director retired and I tried introducing the group to teleconferencing, work from home, etc. the social inertia was just too high - resistance to change is a powerful force. However, now that they have had a year+ of work from home, our department is fighting hard to make it permanent, and the broader company is acknowledging the advantages of a future "hybrid work model" which sees a significant telecommute / wfh transformation of many roles. They have always feared "brain drain" to both the competition and other employers, and acted to protect against that particularly during acquisitions, now the corporate leaders are seeing the competitive advantage that goes to companies who can hire talent without relocating them to office hubs.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 22 2021, @10:56PM
Huh, I didn't realize the satanitc panic caused nearly 5 million deaths.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh