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Post by fauxmaha on Jun 28, 2021 16:37:59 GMT -5
Word just got to me about this horrible news. So sorry, Todd. I can't imagine how awful this is for your family.
I have such fond memories of Kim. She was always a bright light at IJ. Hard to imagine the world without her in it.
Nothing else to say, really, other than all our love and prayers for you and your girls. God bless.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 9, 2020 9:18:49 GMT -5
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 8, 2020 19:39:55 GMT -5
Not going to rebut Jeff--The UCSF article (which dates back to July) tracks with the research, reasoning, and advice I've been reading since March. Plenty of reasons for masking--along with distancing and (less crucial) hand-washing and keeping hands away from infectible tissues when they haven't been washed. The second point in his post, though, is less solid. Note the source of the data for the maps: Every day, Delphi surveys tens of thousands of Facebook users, asking them a broad set of COVID-related questions, including whether they, or anyone in their household, are currently experiencing COVID-related symptoms. We also ask them if they wear a mask when they are in public. For this signal, we estimate the percentage of people who wear a mask most or all of the time when they are in public. Imagine if the topic of this discussion were, say, the reliability of pre-election polling and the questions were about support for Trump. The combination of self-reporting and the venue of gathering affect reliability, and the possible constraints on getting a representative sample via a Facebook questionnaire are pretty obvious. The Delphi map for my county (Stearns) reports 94.49% compliance, but I'd want to compare that with an also-constrained eyeball survey of our mall and stores to see whether what I see there matches. Judging from Target, Macy's, and the four grocery stores we use, I'd say it's pretty close. But there are some notorious scofflaw establishments hereabouts, as well as quite a few nursing homes and meat-processing plants, and a substantial college-age population. And the latest figures from our testing project are 20% positive, with the average age of the infected around 40. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to explain how you lack the credentials to question the methodology of CMU researchers.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 8, 2020 17:42:12 GMT -5
I better at least get a flying car out of this.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 8, 2020 14:06:25 GMT -5
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 7, 2020 19:23:51 GMT -5
What amuses me most about this...the Trumpians wailing about "stolen elections!!" and the Anti-Trumpians wailing about Trumpians is that they are both fundamentally saying the same thing.
Do you believe that our democratic systems are more or less intact and functioning properly?
If so, then why are the sturm and drang over Trump's temper tantrum?
Let him cry. So what? Everyone knew it was coming. (The tantrum, that is.) What difference does it make?
Are you afraid that somehow his crying is going to reverse the outcome? If you do, then that is an indictment of our systems that is no different, in substance, from what TeamTrump is saying.
Or are you afraid that somehow Trump is undermining our faith in America? Please. Dial up some news stories from four years ago (to the day) and refresh yourself on "Russians hacked the election", etc. Sour grapes appears to be our "new normal".
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 6, 2020 19:51:42 GMT -5
You know, enemies. Like the press and other "enemies of the people." I can't remember who said that, but it was someone. That's the guy we look to for our standard of behavior now?
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 6, 2020 19:42:04 GMT -5
"Enemies".
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 5, 2020 8:34:41 GMT -5
This week, I read that no, we are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm, but some of us are riding it out in yachts and some in canoes. That resonates with me. I am profoundly aware of how little the pandemic has affected me and my family economically. For Nancy and I, our SS and pensions continue to roll in. All of our family have kept their jobs. I hear stories of despair, people paying rent with credit cards until they max out. Evictions, depression, even suicide. We have tried to help where we can but know we aren't doing enough. Same storm. A vast difference in boats. That's perfect. Feathering into Zakaria's video, I would add this: Those of us riding this out in the relative comfort and safety of our "yachts" have what you might call a psychological incentive to exaggerate the threat. Everyone being the hero in his own story, we must find our dragon. Zakaria's furloughed oil field worker has no difficulty finding HIS dragon. There's nothing abstract about immediate economic ruin. But it's far worse than that. I think Zakaria used the phrase "feeling worthless", and he's exactly on point. This is what Marxist materialism has never, and can never, understand. Even if you accept Russell's formulation (something like "the material deprivations being experienced wouldn't be happening if only conservatives hadn't resisted our program for all these decades"), you're still left with an enormous spiritual deficit. That's the most brutal dragon of all. That's the dragon that no one else can slay for you. "There is no prosthetic for an amputated spirit". This is all more evidence of the inversion I've been talking about. Loosely, using Rob's metaphor, we've got people lounging on the decks of their yachts, looking at people struggling in heavy seas in their canoes and thinking "those people are doing it wrong". That's almost a perfect description of a 1960's caricature of a "rich Republican (eg, Thurston Howell III). But today, the guy on the yacht is, as Zakaria described, urban, with an advanced degree, working for a multi-national corporation. Care to guess the partisan breakdown of THAT demographic? So here we are, on our yachts, heroically fending off our dragons, as it must be. And the one thing we dare not allow is the possibility that the guy frantically bailing out his canoe, desperately struggling to keep himself and his family afloat, looks at our dragon and laughs.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 4, 2020 17:02:21 GMT -5
This is long, but it's worth a read. It's the text of an email sent by guy who, along with his wife, has a secure government job, describing how his covid experience is different from his brother's:
I remember sharing this video months ago:
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 3, 2020 17:11:34 GMT -5
I have this vision of John Madden narrating that and saying "DOINK!" over and over.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 3, 2020 15:24:25 GMT -5
Therefore bulletproof, of course.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 3, 2020 11:07:38 GMT -5
Does it have a cause?
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 3, 2020 11:05:48 GMT -5
When I was in grade school, a few times each year we'd do pottery.
There was a special art teacher who would come in. She'd explain what we were going to make. Frequently it was an ashtray. Gotta love the '70's.
Then we'd go up and grab a hunk of clay and get to work.
Inevitably, unavoidably, before doing anything else, we'd fashion our clay into dick shapes. Because that's what 10yo boys do. Then we'd point our little clay dicks at each other in mock shooting motion. Things would get out of hand quickly, with ever more elaborate clay dicks being fashioned. The boys howling in laughter. The girls feigning disgust.
Until the teacher had had enough and stepped in and told us to knock it off.
Naturally, I objected: Our makeshift clay dicks were "empowering for gender minorities" and I considered the classroom "to be a safe space to be body and sex-positive." I explained that I "felt personally attacked" and that "it’s not up to them to decide what we can make". I told her "the decision was close-minded" and that "the world is changing, we’re not all prudes – people are interested in this”. I told her "I see there is a big generational gap, people being progressive ... older people are afraid of what that will mean for them."
That shut her right up.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 2, 2020 20:00:52 GMT -5
Wowza! That's shocking, and awful.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 2, 2020 13:48:57 GMT -5
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.
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Post by fauxmaha on Dec 2, 2020 8:57:26 GMT -5
I now feel fairly confident that we will have an orderly transition of power. Until now I wasn't. With that, I'll be happy to quit thinking about politics for a while. I would prefer that he be escorted out of the White House wearing a straight jacket, to hopefully make clear to his brain washed FOX news zombies the he is nuts. The other day, my brother (imagine your stereotype of the most dedicated, ideologically possessed, ultra-liberal from Oak Park. Then double it.) was flying out of Midway. He came across a guy not wearing a mask. Told him to put one on. Guy called him a Nazi in reply. So my brother decided to secretly take the guy's pic and post it on Facebook, and added something to the effect of "If I was really a Nazi, you'd already be on the train heading to the re-education camp". Then came the replies. Lots more fantasizing about all the violence ("hauled away", "wrists and ankles ziptied", "head bounced off the side of the cruiser", etc) they wanted to see done to this guy. I mention this because while we may (or may not) be rid of Trump, we're not rid of the conditions that led to Trump. And we might consider that over 70 million people voted to re-elect Trump. What are you going to do about THAT? Trains? Camps? Zipties? Trumpism isn't over, because Trumpism was never about Trump. All he did was look around and see something that our institutions were too blinkered to notice. It was hiding in plain sight all along. Those same institutions spent four+ years turning a deliberate blind eye to what Trump saw, and now those institutions are looking to wish away the whole thing and go back to the status quo ante. Not going to happen. Trump changed things. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle.
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Post by fauxmaha on Nov 29, 2020 23:50:10 GMT -5
Who are the Bears?
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Distance
Nov 29, 2020 10:48:22 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by fauxmaha on Nov 29, 2020 10:48:22 GMT -5
18" is the standard, IIRC.
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Post by fauxmaha on Nov 28, 2020 7:57:30 GMT -5
Thanks for that. Bravo!
Om a related note, how's the minor key Jingle Bells coming along?
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