vxbush 5/6/2020 5:50:40 AM

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Morning, campers. Illinois's governor put out a reopening plan, which I found from the web site CapitalFax.com. I found this comment to be rather spot on: 

This seems to have been rushed out, because it simply isn’t going to work. You can’t have Phase 3’s “Manufacturing, offices, retail, barbershops and salons can reopen to the public” without first having Phase 4’s “child care and schools reopen under guidance from the IDPH”. What are people supposed to do, leave their kids at home? Employers are going to tell their workers they have to show up because the state says they can, and workers aren’t going to be able to because they won’t have child care. This is a Pritzker fail

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 5:52:10 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

Pritzker and Lightfoot competing with Cuomo and DeBlasio in the Incompetence Olympics!  What a spectacle!

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 5:53:32 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1: Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 2:

If Michigan has a buffoon mayor on the order of Lightfoot and DeBlasio, Whitmer can join in to make it a 3-way team contest!

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:01:29 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

So my region is considered to be in Phase 2, the "flattening the curve" phase. In order to move to phase 3, where some restrictions are lifted, the following must be met: 

Here are my problems with this. As I'm pretty sure they plan to increase testing, there will be a large number of asymptomatic positives. But in order to confirm that people are no longer positive for the virus, they will have to continue testing, and I'm pretty sure that is going to result in people being hamstrung and quarantined when they are not shedding the virus. Notice also that we are required to sit at this level for 28 days, regardless. That seems draconian because there is no redress if the viral load drops even more. 

And then there's contact tracing, which is probably the thing that concerns me the most. It's a small step from contact tracing to guilt by association and from there it just gets worse. I've seen nothing in the document listed above about "privacy", "rights", or "protect" in the sense of protecting people's civil liberties and freedom of association. 

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:05:00 AM

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And on a completely different issue: 

Yesterday I was trying to follow an opinion piece from the web site that posted it back to the claimed source of the article. And every time I tried to follow the link, I would get redirected back to the top level of the source's website. If this had just been an internal redirect from the website that originally hosted the article, I wouldn't have minded. But the redirect was going through Google, and I thought that was really odd. I've not kept up on website hosting code, so a quick search led me to find how Google Analytics does allow for redirection, but it didn't provide me enough information to figure out if the redirect was intention on the part of the website or if Google was trying to hide inconvenient truths. 

Occasional Reader 5/6/2020 6:05:26 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

Another option is to put the children to work, of course.  Those nimble little fingers could be useful in the mills...

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:06:10 AM

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In #2 buzzsawmonkey said: Pritzker and Lightfoot competing with Cuomo and DeBlasio in the Incompetence Olympics!  What a spectacle!

I had to laugh a bit about a comment Pritzker made yesterday, claiming about being a businessman. He's rich enough that he isn't a businessman anymore. His family has hired the businessmen to run the business for them. 

Occasional Reader 5/6/2020 6:07:09 AM

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In #4 vxbush said: in the sense of protecting people's civil liberties

You mean like, the right to late-term abortion?  That sort of thing?

-Puzzled Lefties

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:07:29 AM

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In #3 buzzsawmonkey said: If Michigan has a buffoon mayor on the order of Lightfoot and DeBlasio, Whitmer can join in to make it a 3-way team contest!

Has anyone else noted how incompetence seems to flow regionally? Michigan and Illinois leadership have demonstrated remarkable incompetence. 

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:08:16 AM

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In #6 Occasional Reader said: Another option is to put the children to work, of course.  Those nimble little fingers could be useful in the mills...

Oh, no. If you do that, they start learning about the real world much earlier. Educrats wants to keep them isolated in their little communist learning centers. 

vxbush 5/6/2020 6:09:40 AM

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In #8 Occasional Reader said: You mean like, the right to late-term abortion?  That sort of thing? -Puzzled Lefties

Ah, the mindset of the western credential progressive......

doppelganglander 5/6/2020 6:34:49 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 4:

The plan seems designed not to work. They'd be very happy to keep the peasants under control and increasingly dependent on the government. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pritzker jets off to Florida and Lori Lightfoot gets a haircut because reasons.

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 6:37:57 AM

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In #4 vxbush said: freedom of association. 

I still think IKEA should file some suits in favor of freedom of assembly---particularly since they're a Swedish company and the Swedes didn't go into lockdown.

lucius septimius 5/6/2020 7:01:55 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 2:

I hope Covid is to Lightfoot what the blizzard was to Bilandic.

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 11:33:16 AM

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lucius septimius 5/6/2020 11:47:57 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 15:

Green Lantern, obviously.

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 12:02:14 PM

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In #16 lucius septimius said: Green Lantern, obviously.

"In brightest day, in darkest night

I'll set the Earth's climate aright

Let those who worship petrol's might

Beware my New Green Lantern blight!"

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 12:03:32 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 16:

I was a big Donovan fan, for a while, in high school.  But then, high school is the Time of Stupid.

lucius septimius 5/6/2020 12:04:26 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 18:

My favorite Donovan song.

vxbush 5/6/2020 12:23:15 PM

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In #17 buzzsawmonkey said: "In brightest day, in darkest night I'll set the Earth's climate aright Let those who worship petrol's might Beware my New Green Lantern blight!"

That is so not right.....

JCM 5/6/2020 12:40:20 PM

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Michigan Health Center Workers Stage “Fake Patients” In COVID19 Testing Line For CBS News

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 12:59:32 PM

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In #19 lucius septimius said: My favorite Donovan song.

I'd forgotten that one.  Still amusing, but I'm still embarrassed at having liked Donovan at all.

JCM 5/6/2020 1:21:19 PM

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Reply to JCM in 21:

I've heard this story from 3 trusted sources.

1 American and 2 Iranians.

During the hostage crisis in Tehran '79 and '80 the preception was large crowds protesting in front of our Embassy.

The reality was the street in front of the Embassy was empty save normal traffic 23 1/2 hours a day. The crowds would show up when the US network teams showed up for that day's update. Several time the crowd would be doing nothing and the US news crews had to start the "death to America" chant. 

Occasional Reader 5/6/2020 1:22:31 PM

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Reply to JCM in 21:

Grigory Potemkin, call your office.

vxbush 5/6/2020 2:13:41 PM

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In #24 Occasional Reader said: Grigory Potemkin, call your office.

Yes, indeed. This has been going on a long, long time. 

JCM 5/6/2020 2:34:49 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 24:

Reply to vxbush in 25:

I recently recalled reading this book a long while ago.

First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” Since then Daniel J. Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.

buzzsawmonkey 5/6/2020 2:39:57 PM

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Reply to JCM in 26:

Maybe I'll hunt up a copy next month.  It would be appropriate to read it when June was Boorstin out all over...

JCM 5/6/2020 3:41:12 PM

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What is it with people and Zoom the video app?

The kids schools and doctors office both are using it for conference.

In polite terms I told them they are idiots. Zoom is from China and it's a horrific data miner. I told them their are risking their entire network and data using Zoom.

*facepalm*

Kosh's Shadow 5/6/2020 4:14:38 PM

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And they're small enough to get through narrow tunnels down the mines.

Kosh's Shadow 5/6/2020 4:38:12 PM

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Reply to JCM in 28:

Zoom itself isn't from China, but ...

There are different versions. MIT runs one somewhat more secure (still hosted by Zoom)

There is also zoomgov, which is run only on servers in the US and is federally certified for sensitive but unclassified information. However, you have to be associated with the federal government to get it.