Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

Just now, Captainant said:

there's a shitload of dumbasses out there wearing masks improperly, completely negating any possible protective properties they have. Then you get a second pass of people looking at data and saying "look wearing masks does nothing, look at the numbers!". Then you get a third pass of people joking (I hope) like brat above saying they're useless. Then you have people believing in good faith that the masks are indeed useless.

Solid disinfo propagation.

I have little problem with the portable glory hole becoming a fad for all women.

[Pig Bellmont 8886]

 

[Armybrat 41408]

Mrs. Brat’s homemade masks have a wire sewn into the seam so they can be clamped down over the bridge of our noses for a tight fit, and the ear elastics keep them closed all around the rest of our faces.

Gave me thought... that maybe she could make a usable cock ring too.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22302]

The whole mask/no mask argument has me befuddled.  At least the the anti-vaxxers have a reason for not wanting to get vaccinated.  Even if their reasons are not supported by science, they at least claim a down side.  What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?  The only real argument is I don't want to.  I have enough of those arguments with my kids.

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

I’m going to go with:

The U.S. could have delayed roughly 36,000 deaths from COVID-19 if broad social distancing measures had been put in place just one week earlier, a new study finds

[ZB'Tejas 597]

I saw this article on the NYTimes yesterday... what a dumbass article that does not accomplish anything. I mean if NYC wasn't a shithole with everyone living on top of each other we could have saved 40K lives too. What's the point?

Edited May 21, 2020 by ZB'Tejas

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

1 minute ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

6 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 

Thanks, China.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

@Royalfan5 According to an op-ed in the NYT "The End of Meat" is here as a result of the Wu Flu. I am sure your eyes will roll even more than mine when reading this bs. There isn't a more sanctimonious group of people than vegans. I will give you my well marbled prime tomahawk steak when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/coronavirus-meat-vegetarianism.html?action=click&algo=top_conversion&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=400189979&impression_id=347430843&index=1&pgtype=Article&region=footer

 

The End of Meat Is Here

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

By Jonathan Safran Foer

May 21, 2020

Meat piled in a delivery truck in Manhattan on May 9.Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Is any panic more primitive than the one prompted by the thought of empty grocery store shelves? Is any relief more primitive than the one provided by comfort food?

Most everyone has been doing more cooking these days, more documenting of the cooking, and more thinking about food in general. The combination of meat shortages and President Trump’s decisionto order slaughterhouses open despite the protestations of endangered workers has inspired many Americans to consider just how essential meat is. 

Is it more essential than the lives of the working poor who labor to produce it? It seems so. An astonishing six out of 10 counties that the White House itself identified as coronavirus hot spots are home to the very slaughterhouses the president ordered open.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., the Smithfield pork plant, which produces some 5 percent of the country’s pork, is one of the largest hot spots in the nation. A Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa, had 730 cases of the coronavirus — nearly 60 percent of its employees. At another Tyson plant, in Waterloo, Iowa, there were 1,031 reported cases among about 2,800 workers.

Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, which has led to a backlog of animals. Some farmers are injecting pregnant sows to cause abortions. Others are forced to euthanize their animals, often by gassing or shooting them. It’s gotten bad enough that Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Trump administration to provide mental health resources to hog farmers.

Despite this grisly reality — and the widely reported effects of the factory-farm industry on America’s lands, communities, animals and human health long before this pandemic hit — only around half of Americans say they are trying to reduce their meat consumption. Meat is embedded in our culture and personal histories in ways that matter too much, from the Thanksgiving turkey to the ballpark hot dog. Meat comes with uniquely wonderful smells and tastes, with satisfactions that can almost feel like home itself. And what, if not the feeling of home, is essential?

And yet, an increasing number of people sense the inevitability of impending change.

Animal agriculture is now recognized as a leading cause of global warming. According to The Economist, a quarter of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vegetarians or vegans, which is perhaps one reason sales of plant-based “meats” have skyrocketed, with Impossible and Beyond Burgers available everywhere from Whole Foods to White Castle.

Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door.

At the very least it has forced us to look. When it comes to a subject as inconvenient as meat, it is tempting to pretend unambiguous science is advocacy, to find solace in exceptions that could never be scaled and to speak about our world as if it were theoretical.

Some of the most thoughtful people I know find ways not to give the problems of animal agriculture any thought, just as I find ways to avoid thinking about climate change and income inequality, not to mention the paradoxes in my own eating life. One of the unexpected side effects of these months of sheltering in place is that it’s hard not to think about the things that are essential to who we are.

We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism. Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

According to the research director of Project Drawdown — a nonprofit organization dedicated to modeling solutions to address climate change — eating a plant-based diet is “the most important contribution every individual can make to reversing global warming.”

Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change. A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord. We don’t need new information, and we don’t need new values. We only need to walk through the open door.

We cannot claim to care about the humane treatment of animals while continuing to eat meat regularly. The farming system we rely on is woven through with misery. Modern chickens have been so genetically modified that their very bodies have become prisons of pain even if we open their cages. Turkeys are bred to be so obese that they are incapable of reproducing without artificial insemination. Mother cows have their calves ripped from them before weaning, resulting in acute distress we can hear in their wails and empirically measure through the cortisol in their bodies.

No label or certification can avoid these kinds of cruelty. We don’t need any animal rights activist waving a finger at us. We don’t need to be convinced of anything we don’t already know. We need to listen to ourselves.

We cannot protect against pandemics while continuing to eat meat regularly. Much attention has been paid to wet markets, but factory farms, specifically poultry farms, are a more important breeding ground for pandemics. Further, the C.D.C. reports that three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic — the result of our broken relationship with animals.

It goes without saying that we want to be safe. We know how to make ourselves safer. But wanting and knowing are not enough.

These are not my or anyone’s opinions, despite a tendency to publish this information in opinion sections. And the answers to the most common responses raised by any serious questioning of animal agriculture aren’t opinions.

Don’t we need animal protein? No.

We can live longer, healthier lives without it. Most American adults eat roughly twicethe recommended intake of protein — including vegetarians, who consume 70 percent more than they need. People who eat diets high in animal protein are more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes and kidney failure. Of course, meat, like cake, can be part of a healthy diet. But no sound nutritionist would recommend eating cake too often.

If we let the factory-farm system collapse, won’t farmers suffer? No.

The corporations that speak in their name while exploiting them will. There are fewer American farmers today than there were during the Civil War, despite America’s population being nearly 11 times greater. This is not an accident, but a business model. The ultimate dream of the animal-agriculture industrial complex is for “farms” to be fully automated. Transitioning toward plant-based foods and sustainable farming practices would create many more jobs than it would end.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask a farmer if he or she would be happy to see the end of factory farming.

Isn’t a movement away from meat elitist? No.

A 2015 study found that a vegetarian diet is $750 a year cheaper than a meat-based diet. People of color disproportionately self-identify as vegetarian and disproportionately are victims of factory farming’s brutality. The slaughterhouse employees currently being put at risk to satisfy our taste for meat are overwhelmingly brown and black. Suggesting that a cheaper, healthier, less exploitative way of farming is elitist is in fact a piece of industry propaganda.

Can’t we work with factory-farming corporations to improve the food system? No.

Well, unless you believe that those made powerful through exploitation will voluntarily destroy the vehicles that have granted them spectacular wealth. Factory farming is to actual farming what criminal monopolies are to entrepreneurship. If for a single year the government removed its $38-billion-plus in props and bailouts, and required meat and dairy corporations to play by normal capitalist rules, it would destroy them forever. The industry could not survive in the free market.

Perhaps more than any other food, meat inspires both comfort and discomfort. That can make it difficult to act on what we know and want. Can we really displace meat from the center of our plates? This is the question that brings us to the threshold of the impossible. On the other side is the inevitable.

With the horror of pandemic pressing from behind, and the new questioning of what is essential, we can now see the door that was always there. As in a dream where our homes have rooms unknown to our waking selves, we can sense there is a better way of eating, a life closer to our values. On the other side is not something new, but something that calls from the past — a world in which farmers were not myths, tortured bodies were not food and the planet was not the bill at the end of the meal.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Iconoclast Texan

[Pig Bellmont 8886]

2 minutes ago, ZB'Tejas said:

I saw this article on the NYTimes yesterday... what a dumbass article that does not accomplish anything. I mean if NYC wasn't a shithole with everyone living on top of each other we could have saved 40K lives too. What's the point?

The point is that earlier lockdowns could have been a policy choice that saved lives. It’s not something out of our government’s control like population density 

[utee94 16088]

2 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The whole mask/no mask argument has me befuddled.  At least the the anti-vaxxers have a reason for not wanting to get vaccinated.  Even if their reasons are not supported by science, they at least claim a down side.  What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?  The only real argument is I don't want to.  I have enough of those arguments with my kids.

 

Just now, Casual Encounter said:

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

Yeah.  I'm wearing mine for the good of others, but acting like there's zero downside to them is... sort of weird.  It's not an untenable situation, I'll survive, but I certainly dislike wearing one.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22302]

2 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

So are pants during the summer in Houston

[ZB'Tejas 597]

Just now, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So are pants during the summer in Houston

Which is why I don't wear pants in the summer

[Guest Lobo]

7 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The whole mask/no mask argument has me befuddled.  At least the the anti-vaxxers have a reason for not wanting to get vaccinated.  Even if their reasons are not supported by science, they at least claim a down side.  What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?  The only real argument is I don't want to.  I have enough of those arguments with my kids.

Same reason you put stickers on your car or get a tattoo or wear a skullcap in Austin in July...not wearing a mask is meant to project (without looking like you're projecting)       the age-old cliche, "I don't care what other people think of me...however, here are 7 things about me that I'd like you to think about." 

There's also a new subset of folks that apparently aren't clear on what the mask does/does not do and also how to wear one properly.  because there are this many stupid people, another set of stupid people have opted out of masks altogether because the first group got easily confused.  So while those tens of millions of shitheads are arm-locked in solidarity, the rest of us gotta get breathed on by them in the produce aisle.  The mask does do something to prevent you spreading your shit to other people, same reason you look awkwardly at people who sneeze on you in a line at a convenience store.  But these two groups I mentioned can't do something.  They want to do nothing.  They remind of me of Costanza at the NBC pitch meeting..."Everybody's doing something.  We'll do nothing!"  

What does that mean?  

Edited May 21, 2020 by Lobo

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

3 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The whole mask/no mask argument has me befuddled.  At least the the anti-vaxxers have a reason for not wanting to get vaccinated.  Even if their reasons are not supported by science, they at least claim a down side.  What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?  The only real argument is I don't want to.  I have enough of those arguments with my kids.

Here's my concern:

[EuroHorn 3295]

Just now, Cheeseweasel said:

Here's my concern:

Your concern is Raydog’s going concern 

[ZB'Tejas 597]

2 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

The point is that earlier lockdowns could have been a policy choice that saved lives. It’s not something out of our government’s control like population density 

Population density could and is controlled by the government who sets the building and land codes?

The point is more likely a political play to point fingers and shift blame. This event was nothing like anything that had been faced before? How did we really know that we should (could) have locked things down in March. Better use to time and resources to work toward solutions then just trying to stir people up with sensationalism. 

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

4 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So are pants during the summer in Houston

Now imagine expecting everyone to wear them.

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

5 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So are pants during the summer in Houston

Which is why women don't wear a lot of clothes in the summer. If you are against this, we've got a problem.

[Guest Lobo]

2 minutes ago, ZB'Tejas said:

Population density could and is controlled by the government who sets the building and land codes?

The point is more likely a political play to point fingers and shift blame. This event was nothing like anything that had been faced before? How did we really know that we should (could) have locked things down in March. Better use to time and resources to work toward solutions then just trying to stir people up with sensationalism. 

I'm trying to read that without shitting myself.  No CR, but turn on your television later today and tell me how that's going.  

[Pig Bellmont 8886]

1 minute ago, ZB'Tejas said:

Population density could and is controlled by the government who sets the building and land codes?

The point is more likely a political play to point fingers and shift blame. This event was nothing like anything that had been faced before? How did we really know that we should (could) have locked things down in March. Better use to time and resources to work toward solutions then just trying to stir people up with sensationalism. 

Hakuna Matata! Why worry about the past?

In the face of a pandemic bearing down on the world is it easier and more feasible to recommend/instate a lockdown or meaningfully decrease an urban population. Your comparison is garbage. It’s not sensational, but factual. An earlier lockdown could have saved thousands of lives. Oh well! What can you do? Amirite?!

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

Just now, Pig Bellmont said:

An earlier lockdown could have saved thousands of lives.

Yeah, that article is pure speculative BS. From the article:

 

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11 

If the U.S. had been able to follow social distancing restrictions to the same degree on March 8, the study says, it would have sharply cut the respiratory disease's impact 

 

 

[Anastasis 23720]

How many lives would have been saved by broadly restricting international travel from Europe in late January? 

[Scary Stranger 1726]

The same people screaming that we should have shut down earlier would have been screaming about totalitarianism had we actually shut down earlier.

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

Just now, Anastasis said:

How many lives would have been saved by broadly restricting international travel from Europe in late January? 

Billions!!!!

[ZB'Tejas 597]

3 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

An earlier lockdown could have saved thousands of lives. 

Potentially... we don't really know that yet do we? I'm not saying that we don't learn from the past however articles about what we should/could have done different right now in this point in time are probably written for various other reasons. 

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

3 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Hakuna Matata! Why worry about the past?

Only when it relates to China. We don’t care about what happened in the past in China.

 

7 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Your comparison is garbage. It’s not sensational, but factual. An earlier lockdown could have saved thousands of lives. Oh well! What can you do? Amirite?!

State governments probably should have shut down a little sooner. Could have delayed all these deaths a few months, maybe? 

[ZB'Tejas 597]

Changing gears a bit... I went to Matt's El Rancho the other night for dinner and damn. Very little masks and you would have thought this whole thing was over. Groups meeting up and greeting each other with hugs. Such an odd time when I'm put off by other people enjoying a warm embrace.

[Chooky 13340]

25 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So are pants during the summer in Houston

Also uncomfortable is your lungs turning to a sponge pudding until suffocation.

[SHOOTER12 8886]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

Heh, I still wash my hands thoroughly after receiving any package or unpacking any groceries, but that's just good hygiene so it proves I'm not a freak... right?

 

Don't sell yourself short... you are quite the freak....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just like me...

[Royalfan5 2384]

32 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

@Royalfan5 According to an op-ed in the NYT "The End of Meat" is here as a result of the Wu Flu. I am sure your eyes will roll even more than mine when reading this bs. There isn't a more sanctimonious group of people than vegans. I will give you my well marbled prime tomahawk steak when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/coronavirus-meat-vegetarianism.html?action=click&algo=top_conversion&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=400189979&impression_id=347430843&index=1&pgtype=Article&region=footer

  Reveal hidden contents

The End of Meat Is Here

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

By Jonathan Safran Foer

May 21, 2020

Meat piled in a delivery truck in Manhattan on May 9.Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Is any panic more primitive than the one prompted by the thought of empty grocery store shelves? Is any relief more primitive than the one provided by comfort food?

Most everyone has been doing more cooking these days, more documenting of the cooking, and more thinking about food in general. The combination of meat shortages and President Trump’s decisionto order slaughterhouses open despite the protestations of endangered workers has inspired many Americans to consider just how essential meat is. 

Is it more essential than the lives of the working poor who labor to produce it? It seems so. An astonishing six out of 10 counties that the White House itself identified as coronavirus hot spots are home to the very slaughterhouses the president ordered open.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., the Smithfield pork plant, which produces some 5 percent of the country’s pork, is one of the largest hot spots in the nation. A Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa, had 730 cases of the coronavirus — nearly 60 percent of its employees. At another Tyson plant, in Waterloo, Iowa, there were 1,031 reported cases among about 2,800 workers.

Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, which has led to a backlog of animals. Some farmers are injecting pregnant sows to cause abortions. Others are forced to euthanize their animals, often by gassing or shooting them. It’s gotten bad enough that Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Trump administration to provide mental health resources to hog farmers.

Despite this grisly reality — and the widely reported effects of the factory-farm industry on America’s lands, communities, animals and human health long before this pandemic hit — only around half of Americans say they are trying to reduce their meat consumption. Meat is embedded in our culture and personal histories in ways that matter too much, from the Thanksgiving turkey to the ballpark hot dog. Meat comes with uniquely wonderful smells and tastes, with satisfactions that can almost feel like home itself. And what, if not the feeling of home, is essential?

And yet, an increasing number of people sense the inevitability of impending change.

Animal agriculture is now recognized as a leading cause of global warming. According to The Economist, a quarter of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vegetarians or vegans, which is perhaps one reason sales of plant-based “meats” have skyrocketed, with Impossible and Beyond Burgers available everywhere from Whole Foods to White Castle.

Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door.

At the very least it has forced us to look. When it comes to a subject as inconvenient as meat, it is tempting to pretend unambiguous science is advocacy, to find solace in exceptions that could never be scaled and to speak about our world as if it were theoretical.

Some of the most thoughtful people I know find ways not to give the problems of animal agriculture any thought, just as I find ways to avoid thinking about climate change and income inequality, not to mention the paradoxes in my own eating life. One of the unexpected side effects of these months of sheltering in place is that it’s hard not to think about the things that are essential to who we are.

We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism. Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

According to the research director of Project Drawdown — a nonprofit organization dedicated to modeling solutions to address climate change — eating a plant-based diet is “the most important contribution every individual can make to reversing global warming.”

Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change. A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord. We don’t need new information, and we don’t need new values. We only need to walk through the open door.

We cannot claim to care about the humane treatment of animals while continuing to eat meat regularly. The farming system we rely on is woven through with misery. Modern chickens have been so genetically modified that their very bodies have become prisons of pain even if we open their cages. Turkeys are bred to be so obese that they are incapable of reproducing without artificial insemination. Mother cows have their calves ripped from them before weaning, resulting in acute distress we can hear in their wails and empirically measure through the cortisol in their bodies.

No label or certification can avoid these kinds of cruelty. We don’t need any animal rights activist waving a finger at us. We don’t need to be convinced of anything we don’t already know. We need to listen to ourselves.

We cannot protect against pandemics while continuing to eat meat regularly. Much attention has been paid to wet markets, but factory farms, specifically poultry farms, are a more important breeding ground for pandemics. Further, the C.D.C. reports that three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic — the result of our broken relationship with animals.

It goes without saying that we want to be safe. We know how to make ourselves safer. But wanting and knowing are not enough.

These are not my or anyone’s opinions, despite a tendency to publish this information in opinion sections. And the answers to the most common responses raised by any serious questioning of animal agriculture aren’t opinions.

Don’t we need animal protein? No.

We can live longer, healthier lives without it. Most American adults eat roughly twicethe recommended intake of protein — including vegetarians, who consume 70 percent more than they need. People who eat diets high in animal protein are more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes and kidney failure. Of course, meat, like cake, can be part of a healthy diet. But no sound nutritionist would recommend eating cake too often.

If we let the factory-farm system collapse, won’t farmers suffer? No.

The corporations that speak in their name while exploiting them will. There are fewer American farmers today than there were during the Civil War, despite America’s population being nearly 11 times greater. This is not an accident, but a business model. The ultimate dream of the animal-agriculture industrial complex is for “farms” to be fully automated. Transitioning toward plant-based foods and sustainable farming practices would create many more jobs than it would end.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask a farmer if he or she would be happy to see the end of factory farming.

Isn’t a movement away from meat elitist? No.

A 2015 study found that a vegetarian diet is $750 a year cheaper than a meat-based diet. People of color disproportionately self-identify as vegetarian and disproportionately are victims of factory farming’s brutality. The slaughterhouse employees currently being put at risk to satisfy our taste for meat are overwhelmingly brown and black. Suggesting that a cheaper, healthier, less exploitative way of farming is elitist is in fact a piece of industry propaganda.

Can’t we work with factory-farming corporations to improve the food system? No.

Well, unless you believe that those made powerful through exploitation will voluntarily destroy the vehicles that have granted them spectacular wealth. Factory farming is to actual farming what criminal monopolies are to entrepreneurship. If for a single year the government removed its $38-billion-plus in props and bailouts, and required meat and dairy corporations to play by normal capitalist rules, it would destroy them forever. The industry could not survive in the free market.

Perhaps more than any other food, meat inspires both comfort and discomfort. That can make it difficult to act on what we know and want. Can we really displace meat from the center of our plates? This is the question that brings us to the threshold of the impossible. On the other side is the inevitable.

With the horror of pandemic pressing from behind, and the new questioning of what is essential, we can now see the door that was always there. As in a dream where our homes have rooms unknown to our waking selves, we can sense there is a better way of eating, a life closer to our values. On the other side is not something new, but something that calls from the past — a world in which farmers were not myths, tortured bodies were not food and the planet was not the bill at the end of the meal.

I saw that, but the offtake rates of meat vs. fake meat when the stores got hit tells another story. 

[gmr548 16701]

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

The entire state of Texas is hot as fuck and uncomfortable for five months a year. A mask isn't even a drop in the bucket. That's a little dramatic and not a real downside. No one's suffering any adverse consequences for throwing on a mask for 30 minutes on a HEB run.

[Pato del Muerto 53506]

48 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 

How many lives saved if more people bothered to adhere to the measures when enacted on 3/15?

and why do we as citizens have to wait for the government to tell us what to do?  I modified my behavior weeks before the government mandated it. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

1 minute ago, gmr548 said:

39 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

That's a little dramatic and not a real downside. No one's suffering any adverse consequences for throwing on a mask for 30 minutes on a HEB run.

You act like I’m advocating for it. I was merely pointing out their reason. You know, taking an actual look from their point of view; you should try it some time.

I can promise you, it is a downside for some people, whether you want to agree or not, and many have to wear them much longer than 30 minutes. 

[dcar00 14973]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How many lives saved if more people bothered to adhere to the measures when enacted on 3/15?

more wild ass guessing.  no one knows.

[Guest Lobo]

Would wearing a mask outside in Texas in the summer for long periods of time be miserable?  Of course, and I doubt I'll do it. 

What I think is a reasonable expectation of your fellow Texan, considering we can't stop patting ourselves on the back about our neighborly kindness (and I agree), is putting one on for the few minutes you're indoors in close proximity to people in...the FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING!  I get hotter than two rats in a sock faster than most Texans.  My body just never acclimated down here from Chicago 25 years ago.  When it's dry out but 95, I'm okay.  But 80 and the slightest hint of humidity and I look like a trainspotting extra in withdrawals.  So to compensate for that and not get all balmy when wearing a mask, I do this weird thing where I use my  brain.  I drive to the store with my car's air conditioning on.  I then park, put on my mask, and proceed inside to the air-conditioned store.  Somewhat uncomfortable on the walk in and out, but it's okay inside and then I get to crank up my A/C to my heart's content when I get back into my car to go back to my HVAC controlled home or office.  Now is spending hours in a mask outdoors on a trail hike or something gonna suck?  Yep, absolutely.  That's why I use what's left of my brain and do 5 minutes of advance planning each day. Here's what trails/sidewalk routes we'll take the kids on today to avoid running into people.  Here's when I'll shop and here's how I'll consolidate errands and purchases to reduce time spent close to people.  Here's what we can defer to order by mail until later, here's what must be purchased now, in person because the kids need certain supplies and foods.  I know it's not popular on this site to emulate German policy or politics, but at least acknowledge their penchant for wise logistics.  

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How many lives saved if more people bothered to adhere to the measures when enacted on 3/15?

and why do we as citizens have to wait for the government to tell us what to do?  I modified my behavior weeks before the government mandated it. 

Because some people want to give all control to the government while simultaneously, and constantly, complaining about their failures.

[Armybrat 41408]

45 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

@Royalfan5 According to an op-ed in the NYT "The End of Meat" is here as a result of the Wu Flu. I am sure your eyes will roll even more than mine when reading this bs. There isn't a more sanctimonious group of people than vegans. I will give you my well marbled prime tomahawk steak when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/coronavirus-meat-vegetarianism.html?action=click&algo=top_conversion&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=400189979&impression_id=347430843&index=1&pgtype=Article&region=footer

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The End of Meat Is Here

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

By Jonathan Safran Foer

May 21, 2020

Meat piled in a delivery truck in Manhattan on May 9.Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Is any panic more primitive than the one prompted by the thought of empty grocery store shelves? Is any relief more primitive than the one provided by comfort food?

Most everyone has been doing more cooking these days, more documenting of the cooking, and more thinking about food in general. The combination of meat shortages and President Trump’s decisionto order slaughterhouses open despite the protestations of endangered workers has inspired many Americans to consider just how essential meat is. 

Is it more essential than the lives of the working poor who labor to produce it? It seems so. An astonishing six out of 10 counties that the White House itself identified as coronavirus hot spots are home to the very slaughterhouses the president ordered open.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., the Smithfield pork plant, which produces some 5 percent of the country’s pork, is one of the largest hot spots in the nation. A Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa, had 730 cases of the coronavirus — nearly 60 percent of its employees. At another Tyson plant, in Waterloo, Iowa, there were 1,031 reported cases among about 2,800 workers.

Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, which has led to a backlog of animals. Some farmers are injecting pregnant sows to cause abortions. Others are forced to euthanize their animals, often by gassing or shooting them. It’s gotten bad enough that Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Trump administration to provide mental health resources to hog farmers.

Despite this grisly reality — and the widely reported effects of the factory-farm industry on America’s lands, communities, animals and human health long before this pandemic hit — only around half of Americans say they are trying to reduce their meat consumption. Meat is embedded in our culture and personal histories in ways that matter too much, from the Thanksgiving turkey to the ballpark hot dog. Meat comes with uniquely wonderful smells and tastes, with satisfactions that can almost feel like home itself. And what, if not the feeling of home, is essential?

And yet, an increasing number of people sense the inevitability of impending change.

Animal agriculture is now recognized as a leading cause of global warming. According to The Economist, a quarter of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vegetarians or vegans, which is perhaps one reason sales of plant-based “meats” have skyrocketed, with Impossible and Beyond Burgers available everywhere from Whole Foods to White Castle.

Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door.

At the very least it has forced us to look. When it comes to a subject as inconvenient as meat, it is tempting to pretend unambiguous science is advocacy, to find solace in exceptions that could never be scaled and to speak about our world as if it were theoretical.

Some of the most thoughtful people I know find ways not to give the problems of animal agriculture any thought, just as I find ways to avoid thinking about climate change and income inequality, not to mention the paradoxes in my own eating life. One of the unexpected side effects of these months of sheltering in place is that it’s hard not to think about the things that are essential to who we are.

We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism. Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

According to the research director of Project Drawdown — a nonprofit organization dedicated to modeling solutions to address climate change — eating a plant-based diet is “the most important contribution every individual can make to reversing global warming.”

Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change. A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord. We don’t need new information, and we don’t need new values. We only need to walk through the open door.

We cannot claim to care about the humane treatment of animals while continuing to eat meat regularly. The farming system we rely on is woven through with misery. Modern chickens have been so genetically modified that their very bodies have become prisons of pain even if we open their cages. Turkeys are bred to be so obese that they are incapable of reproducing without artificial insemination. Mother cows have their calves ripped from them before weaning, resulting in acute distress we can hear in their wails and empirically measure through the cortisol in their bodies.

No label or certification can avoid these kinds of cruelty. We don’t need any animal rights activist waving a finger at us. We don’t need to be convinced of anything we don’t already know. We need to listen to ourselves.

We cannot protect against pandemics while continuing to eat meat regularly. Much attention has been paid to wet markets, but factory farms, specifically poultry farms, are a more important breeding ground for pandemics. Further, the C.D.C. reports that three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic — the result of our broken relationship with animals.

It goes without saying that we want to be safe. We know how to make ourselves safer. But wanting and knowing are not enough.

These are not my or anyone’s opinions, despite a tendency to publish this information in opinion sections. And the answers to the most common responses raised by any serious questioning of animal agriculture aren’t opinions.

Don’t we need animal protein? No.

We can live longer, healthier lives without it. Most American adults eat roughly twicethe recommended intake of protein — including vegetarians, who consume 70 percent more than they need. People who eat diets high in animal protein are more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes and kidney failure. Of course, meat, like cake, can be part of a healthy diet. But no sound nutritionist would recommend eating cake too often.

If we let the factory-farm system collapse, won’t farmers suffer? No.

The corporations that speak in their name while exploiting them will. There are fewer American farmers today than there were during the Civil War, despite America’s population being nearly 11 times greater. This is not an accident, but a business model. The ultimate dream of the animal-agriculture industrial complex is for “farms” to be fully automated. Transitioning toward plant-based foods and sustainable farming practices would create many more jobs than it would end.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask a farmer if he or she would be happy to see the end of factory farming.

Isn’t a movement away from meat elitist? No.

A 2015 study found that a vegetarian diet is $750 a year cheaper than a meat-based diet. People of color disproportionately self-identify as vegetarian and disproportionately are victims of factory farming’s brutality. The slaughterhouse employees currently being put at risk to satisfy our taste for meat are overwhelmingly brown and black. Suggesting that a cheaper, healthier, less exploitative way of farming is elitist is in fact a piece of industry propaganda.

Can’t we work with factory-farming corporations to improve the food system? No.

Well, unless you believe that those made powerful through exploitation will voluntarily destroy the vehicles that have granted them spectacular wealth. Factory farming is to actual farming what criminal monopolies are to entrepreneurship. If for a single year the government removed its $38-billion-plus in props and bailouts, and required meat and dairy corporations to play by normal capitalist rules, it would destroy them forever. The industry could not survive in the free market.

Perhaps more than any other food, meat inspires both comfort and discomfort. That can make it difficult to act on what we know and want. Can we really displace meat from the center of our plates? This is the question that brings us to the threshold of the impossible. On the other side is the inevitable.

With the horror of pandemic pressing from behind, and the new questioning of what is essential, we can now see the door that was always there. As in a dream where our homes have rooms unknown to our waking selves, we can sense there is a better way of eating, a life closer to our values. On the other side is not something new, but something that calls from the past — a world in which farmers were not myths, tortured bodies were not food and the planet was not the bill at the end of the meal.

Those sanctimonious vegans need to stop eating the poor animals’ food. Plus those veggies scream too when cut.

[Cheeseweasel 26439]

3 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

more wild ass guessing.  no one knows.

More than 3, but less than a billion?

[gmr548 16701]

You know, taking an actual look from their point of view; you should try it some time.

Unfortunately I can't kill enough brain cells.

[Hate 20249]

36 minutes ago, Scary Stranger said:

The same people screaming that we should have shut down earlier would have been screaming about totalitarianism had we actually shut down earlier.

And those same people are the ones screaming listen to the scientist when the lead scientist of infectious diseases in the US was saying that cruises were safe for healthy people as late as March 9th. It's not exactly easy to social distance on a cruise and also not exactly a call for nationwide social distancing by the scientist.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Hate

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13435]

3 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

 

Unfortunately I can't kill enough brain cells.

 

If you ever want to truly influence people, get off your high horse and get to know them. Sincerely get to know them. You don’t have to agree with them, but understanding them is extremely important when it comes to changing them.

If you just want to complain for the sake of complaining, shut the fuck up.

[XYZ 2154]

1 hour ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The whole mask/no mask argument has me befuddled.  At least the the anti-vaxxers have a reason for not wanting to get vaccinated.  Even if their reasons are not supported by science, they at least claim a down side.  What exactly is the downside to wearing a mask even if it is completely ineffective?  The only real argument is I don't want to.  I have enough of those arguments with my kids.

Muh freedoms?

[Born to Run 6601]

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

That's it right there. That's America now.

Contrasted: My grandfathers family survived a depression, he left home to join the CCC at 18. Left home again permanently to move to the city to find work. Left that to build ships for the war effort after medical issues prevented service. One of his brothers was shot down in Europe and spent 2 years in a POW camp. Another brother died in combat. He scrimped and saved and worked his entire life to leave his hiers some inheritance. I think he took two trips in his life for " recreation". One to visit his oldest before he got shipped off to die in Vietnam. And one to see that son's name on the wall in DC.

But yeah masks are uncomfortable...

[RDCanecutter 26893]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

 Post-op blood dribbling disintegrated one side of that mask.when I pulled it off at home. Lol

That's pretty damn Metal.

[Armybrat 41408]

I recall the Austin Mayor Adler, after shutting down SXSW, in a tv interview at a packed Austin restaurant adamantly encourage everybody to continue to go out to public venues to eat & drink.

I laughed when the straw That was clearly visible in his drink early in the interview disappeared halfway through his pep talk. A little oopsie there. Lol

[Js1 87185]

25 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

1 hour ago, Casual Encounter said:

They’re hot as fuck and uncomfortable?

The entire state of Texas is hot as fuck and uncomfortable for five months a year. A mask isn't even a drop in the bucket. That's a little dramatic and not a real downside. No one's suffering any adverse consequences for throwing on a mask for 30 minutes on a HEB run.

This.  You don't really even need to put it on until you approach the store entrance (that 45 second walk from your car to the store entrance wearing a mask will surely cause you great physical harm).  No one is asking you to go run a 10K wearing a mask.  Just fucking wear one inside stores, restaurants, etc.  The AC should keep you nice and cool.  And brush your fucking teeth, probably why it's uncomfortable. 

[dcar00 14973]

5 minutes ago, Hate said:

And those same people are the ones screaming listen to the scientist when the lead scientist of infectious diseases in the US was saying that cruises were safe for healthy people as late as March 9th. It's not exactly easy to social distance on a cruise and also not exactly a call for nationwide social distancing by the scientist.

anyone that doesn't understand that we were trying to get supply lines for food, PPE, vents, etc for 2 months, while making sure the public didn't freak out, doesn't want to understand.  Fauci has said multiple times that his requests have been accepted 'every time'. I also believe they were looking to hit the bell curve on either side for as short a shut down as possible to save the hospitals.

I can concede that there may be some pushback now but from everything we heard from the SCIENTIST OMG THE SCIENCE for 3 months his recommendations were followed.

[Skipper 6411]

Now that we're at a point where everyone is looking at data to as evidence that either reopening is a good or bad idea, the media is doing an absolutely terrible job of explaining that there is clearly still a significant lag between the date of the test and the date any positive result is publicly confirmed.  And more importantly, I don't understand why the media hasn't put public officials feet to the fire to provide an explanation as to why this lag still exists in late May (which is pretty fucking inexcusable IMO).   I thought we were going to be in a position by this time next week to start really diving into the impact of reopening, but now I'm pretty convinced  we're still several weeks away.    Here is why:

I've thought (and still think) at least on a micro level that the Dallas hospitalization data posted every Tues and Friday is the best tracking tool (partially on the assumption that hospital tests may be fast tracked compared to the general public).   But I noticed some things didn't make sense and dove into the Dallas data a little deeper and realized there is a significant lag with this data as well.    

For example:  See below comparisons for data published 5/12 vs. 5/19.

For week ending 4/25; 5/12 data indicated 153 admissions for that week.  5/19 data indicated  158 (+5 in updated data)

For week ending 5/2:  5/12 data indicated 124 admissions for that week:   5/19 data indicated  139 (+15 in updated data)

For week ending 5/9:  5/12 data indicated 84 hospitalizations for that week:   5/19 data indicated 149 (+65 in updated data).

 

The interim 5/15 data gets you part of the way there with +4, +7 and +47 respectively compared to 5/9.

So based on this, you pretty much have to look back 7 days and really 10 at all times to get a relatively accurate picture of hospitalizations with the knowledge that even  those numbers will likely be adjusted upward slightly over the course of the next 2-3 weeks.

That's pretty unacceptable.  Maybe local officials have access to better data but this is our govt we are talking about so I kind of doubt it.   So forget testing/contract tracing which is clearly a pipe dream on a mass scale, we may not even be able to detect a trend before it's too late.   Particularly given that hospitalization generally trails infection by 10+ days.

So I guess my point is I really hope the measures in place (better hygiene, social distancing, limited capacity, masks) while reopening (not to mention the weather) are sufficient because I don't have a lot of faith we're in a position to detect a large spike until it's too late.

[Eskimohorn 5682]

I’m going to go with:
The U.S. could have delayed roughly 36,000 deaths from COVID-19 if broad social distancing measures had been put in place just one week earlier, a new study finds

Well thats one way to look at it. But in the final analysis, benchmarked analysis will show measures humans and governments took make a difference and that with more testing and knowledge of the virus now compared to early on, readiness is better. Its not inevitable we’ll all get it. Isn’t that why we can open up?

If you’re talking about the very ill dying anyway, or dying with covid, not because of covid, then thats a radical departure. Since our overall mortality rate has spiked, the anecdotal stories of those deaths being coded as COVID are largely exaggerated. An elderly person dying is still a death and counts as a death, as a homicide, as a cancer death, etc.