Re: Corona Virus

by PeterCS Tue 10 Mar 2020, 10:16

Does panic toilet paper emit soothing aromatherapy-type scent?

by skully Tue 10 Mar 2020, 10:33

Apparently* not, given the angry scenes in some Aus supermarkets as idiots squabble over packets of bog roll.

by Red Tue 10 Mar 2020, 11:07

The aisle was refilled at my closest supermarket on Sunday morning, but despite Coles putting a one packet limit on all customers, the shelves were denuded in no time.

Ditto shelves with boxes of tissues.

Hand sanitiser is a rare commodity, whilst pasta sauce is an endangered species.

by Red Tue 10 Mar 2020, 11:13

skully wrote:
Red wrote:Well during the GFC, at least we had a govt. which put in measures to assist the economy. Libs are typically inert in crises or otherwise.

What?? Rudd decides, while sitting on the shitter, to blow the surplus left by the Libs rates as brilliant strategy??? What would he have done with no surplus?

At least the Libs are thinking about the best strategy to apply (not in a Pinko-like state of panic). And using the surplus they created.

You Pinkos are hilarious.

If the world ends tomorrow, what's the point of a surplus?

Spending on infrastructure etc. creates jobs and stimulates the economy. For once the Libs are in during challenging economic times and the myth about their great economic management record has been busted. They wasted the mining boom on middle class largesse. They didn't build the infrastructure etc. which Labor always has to do because they're so inert.

Look at Victoria, Nappythine did nothing for his stint and now Andrews is creating more activity than the rest of Australia combined, according to official figures. Our local economy is productive.

And what is the NSW govt planning? A wage freeze on less. Well that will get them spending. That will boost the economy.

Wages have stagnated yet ScoMo tells everyone to spend. He relies on the RBA to lower rates again.

What does that do? Inflates the housing market. Forces self-refunded retirees onto pensions or into poverty.

How about some meaningful policies??

by skully Tue 10 Mar 2020, 13:09

Ask Kevin Rudd what the point of a surplus is.

by embee Tue 10 Mar 2020, 13:23

PeterCS wrote:
embee wrote:My reading of that article is Boris went on a fluffy tv show and the host decided to be difficult so he could get Boris in a gotcha moment

Not helpful in any way

He has no business even entertaining the concept of "taking the hit", for a start.

why not?

its how we deal with the flu

it doesnt kill the stock market , shut down a country of 60 million people and cause mass buying of dunny paper

by PeterCS Tue 10 Mar 2020, 16:30

For God's sake.

Whether facetiously or (worse) in earnest, you've joined up with the "worse-than-Malthus" brigade:

The so-called "mathematical modelling" sociopaths & psychopaths such as Johnson's arsehole-in-chief, Dominic Cummings.

Panic buying of shitpaper, as if for norovirus (a completely different attack in any case) is another idiocy altogether. A Brexit-type "me-first me-first" hysteria, that helps no cause but reptilian cunning, aka brutish, truculent human stupidity.

The UK Govt might rather bother itself to get medical and/or plain commonsense factual advice issued against such stupidities, than bumbling, shambling and burbling, & trivialising epidemics, public health & welfare, and how (properly) they might best be approached & dealt with.

Panic buying (and incidentally also speculator "bull & bear" behaviour) have absolutely nothing to do with a so-called Government & its running dogs* expressing themselves - on balance - quite pleased to see the population "culled" a bit.

*e.g.

Jeremy Warner, business writer & assistant editor for the Barclays' once-reputable Daily Telegraph wrote: “From an entirely disinterested economic perspective, COVID-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependents.”

Which, when challenged, he only compounded (!):

by JGK Wed 11 Mar 2020, 03:49

Warner's not wrong.

by Bradman Wed 11 Mar 2020, 04:46

Well the old saying about markets being driven by panic and greed, someone's going to make a fortune but this Warner guy didn't have to come across as an attendee of the Wannsee conference to get his point across.

by JGK Wed 11 Mar 2020, 07:02

Apparently* the UK Health Minister has CV.

Surely it is only a matter of time before Trump, Bernie or Biden get it as well. Prince Phillip surely can't be seen in public at the moment either.

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 09:28

"Warner's not wrong" in the same way as Malthus was not "wrong".

Only worse, as Malthus was not nodding his head at one particular pandemic.

In the same way that the intendants of certain "concentration camps" were not "wrong". And only duly following orders. (And knew nothing.)

If you believe in the "logic" of "mathematical modelling", how far would you agree to give your place on earth to a computer?

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 09:46

JGK wrote:Apparently* the UK Health Minister has CV.

Surely it is only a matter of time before Trump, Bernie or Biden get it as well. Prince Phillip surely can't be seen in public at the moment either.

As the Political Editor at Sky News UK put it (MY BOLD):

Beth Rigby wrote:
As a health minister in contact with other health ministers & officials, the obvious question is whether there has been wider transmission in DoH team.

Understand @MattHancock in good health and not displaying any symptoms.

So many questions in terms of contact tracing & ramifications for those who came into contact with Nadine [Dorries], from potentially the PM at IWD event, to other ministers, health officials, MPs, parl[iamentar]y staff, constituents. That a health minister is one of 382 UK cases is mind-boggling

FWIW I also agree with this comment (social media):

Nobody should celebrate her sickness. They ought to ask why she stayed in work and then held a constituency surgery - both of which are dangerous errors of judgement that may result in consequences for others.

by JGK Wed 11 Mar 2020, 10:29

Are people "celebrating" her sickness?

by JGK Wed 11 Mar 2020, 10:30

PeterCS wrote:"Warner's not wrong" in the same way as Malthus was not "wrong".

Only worse, as Malthus was not nodding his head at one particular pandemic.

In the same way that the intendants of certain "concentration camps" were not "wrong". And only duly following orders. (And knew nothing.)

If you believe in the "logic" of "mathematical modelling", how far would you agree to give your place on earth to a computer?

Now THAT is a leap in logic.

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 14:43

Hyperbole is a time-honoured and legitimate device.

If you mean I was saying "it's the same thing", of course I didn't. It's classically a "reductio ad absurdum" - of what appeared an inhuman perspective, a scything logic on your part. Whether facetious or in earnest.

Hence also my question back to you: would you surrender your place to a computer? So, would you?

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:17

JGK wrote:Are people "celebrating" her sickness?

You have to know Ms Dorries is noted for a particularly small-minded, nasty, brutish and short, xenophobic, vindictive brand of thinking & politics.

(Samples of such thinking attached below. The second in the form of responses to Nadine handsomely denouncing as traitors those Tory MPs (representatives of her own party) who took the view on one particular day in the House of Commons: Err, hold on there a minute Theresa... )

To attempt a comparison: perhaps it would be similar if some misfortune, accident or illness befell Pauline Hanson - or possibly Lynton Crosby, or ...? - well, use your imagination, you know better than I where the Australian horrors lurk.

There are always some who reckon "they/she/he deserved it", "hahaha, poetic justice", or some such. (Check quite a few posts here on the Bails, for example ...)

So, probably.

I didn't see them personally.

But I can't imagine nobody at all indulged at least in a social media post of small-minded Schadenfreude - however understandable the exasperation, given the absolute state of this reptilian Government - which is the sort of glee that (sadly) usually makes the aggrieved celebrant appear to casual observers as if they habitually share the porkpie-brain mentality of people like Ms Dorries.

You know how it is.

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:26

I might add - in case anyone is ready to say, ah, but how was she to know she's contracted COVID19?? - that it has been OFFICIAL BORIS JOHNSON GOVERNMENT ADVICE for the past week or so that anyone complaining of flu-like symptoms should immediately "self-isolate" for a week.

(Generally good practice anyway with genuine heavy colds & flu - as opposed to "manflu" - despite all the pressures, perceived, self-imposed or whatever, that make employees "soldier on" even when barely able to breathe. But when it's Govt advice, you know that this is a new step, a clear and imminent fear.)

But a health minister went ahead with surgeries with constituents at the end of last week.

by PeterCS Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:34

by horace Wed 11 Mar 2020, 19:01

Interesting Pete mentioned Malthus. I suspect my views on population growth are Malthusian.

There are far too many humans than is healthy for the species or the planet. I think many folk share the view but it is the elephant in the room, it is rarely talked about.

Population control measures are considered abhorrent. There remains disdain for China's one child policy and few complain how the USA limits foreign aid to countries with abortion rights.

In most advanced capitalist economies fertility control has been commodified as a debate between personal choice (women's right to choose) v religions.

There is no debate here about the rights of people to breed or to have as many kids as they wish. There should be.

Fifteen years ago, through a partner i met a very nice woman who was 41 at the time. She had no kids but was now pregnant. She went off and had all the tests to check the status of the foetus, saying she would have a termination if there were problems.

Saw her a few months after the tests and she was in full prepping for parenthood mode. It transpired the Tests had shown there were considerable abnormalities and she had decided against termination. Here rationale was chilling:
* she had a right to be a parent
* her child had a right to happy life and would be loved
* besides community and government would take financial care for the child.

For thirty+ years I have had intermittent contact with disability issues and public policy debates. I have watched public policy move from denial of the sexuality of people with cognitive disability (with sterilisations on the quiet in institutions) to recognition of sexuality but also rights to procreate.

The roulette wheel of genetic structure increases probability that problems will be passed on. It is sort of a reversal of chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

At a bit after 5.30am I am waiting for the coffee to kick in. I worry my views owe to early 20thC eugenics and dystopian imagination.

by JGK Thu 12 Mar 2020, 02:49

Meanwhile, the NBA has suspended its season. EPL looks like following suit (Seria A already has).

NRL and AFL can't be far behind.

by skully Thu 12 Mar 2020, 05:17

Fark, the world is going to shit!!

by Big Dog Thu 12 Mar 2020, 05:33

Tom Hanks & his Mrs have contracted it on the Gold Coast.

by Bradman Thu 12 Mar 2020, 06:09

OK. This is now getting interesting. Those sports are a part of the economy. Screw the e word if this runs into factories et al? The preppers must be having a good laugh.

by JGK Thu 12 Mar 2020, 06:17

Market crapped itself again. Now down about 25% in 3 weeks. That didn't even happen in the GFC.

by embee Thu 12 Mar 2020, 07:21

Big Dog wrote:Tom Hanks & his Mrs have contracted it on the Gold Coast.

Corona Virus - Page 2 90046822_1530786997083722_2247530775106813952_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_sid=dd7718&_nc_eui2=AeEkISBnE-3bDExaGfk-9Nstueu2wQDne6iEhL43Yi6tJ5bJkh6_NWIHcz6Bh9SesjF9RKxBWPeYlJ4728xDttaNLsDbcd3pg-wQrSQmQDQ9uA&_nc_ohc=rJxmDe3FTD0AX9K291M&_nc_ht=scontent.fper6-1

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