CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[BradInATX 9208]

16 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

What is your acceptable number of covid deaths to open schools?

That's a simplistic approach to a complex question. Schools should open when we're in a situation where the spread is mostly controlled and we have infrastructure in place to rapidly identify and smother outbreaks. Almost every other first world country on the planet has reached this point. We haven't. Mostly because people don't have the patience to wear masks when they're out and otherwise stay indoors and hang out with their families and cook dinner and spend extra time and effort on their kids for another few months.

The other issue is that Americans, compared to Europeans and Asians, aren't really trustworthy when it comes to participating in the collective good. There is a large chunk of the population that is going to send their sick kids to school for various selfish reasons. There will be some that know the kid has Covid and just don't care, and a much larger population that is going do the "oh it's just a cold little Billy go to school" thing because they want to pretend to have a conscience but also don't want to deal with their kids for 14 days.

It's going to be a cluster fuck. We are not a responsible enough society to have nice things like school being open right now.

Edited July 27, 2020 by BradInATX

[Sawbonz 27561]

26 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

Well, I think death is certainly a harsher punishment than missing a year of school.

Speaking of simplistic approaches. As I said we have to find a balance. Sounds like you agree based on your last post. Have a good night

[Veerbone 116]

1 hour ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

The entire Republican leadership makes the Mayor from Amity Island in Jaws look like a good, caring human being and all that guy cared about was "summer dollars" for the town and not the possible loss of life from a shark attack.  

[Dark Horse 2280]

What are the long term heath effects of kids that get Covid, even if asymptomatic? 
 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Dark Horse

[Guest Lobo]

Well, considering the ones that got the virus the longest ago, have only aged 6 months...it's gonna kinda be hard to tell.  

This thing does scream out that it's gonna have longer term effects on people that a season flu does.  

[Chooky 13307]

[Dark Horse 2280]

So are these unknown long term health effects being factored into the decision to send my kids back to school? Or are they ok as long as they don’t die or kill their teacher?

[Wanker Bob 379]

1 hour ago, Sawbonz said:

It's one of several reasons for opening schools. And no one here is advocating throwing caution to the wind and "cranking covid to 11."  But you are minimizing non-covid related morbidity and mortality directly resulting from the containment policies.  Panic attacks, anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder requiring meds which carry risk of significant side effects in teens including suicidal ideation, stress induced autoimmune flares. These conditions are just as traumatic and at times tragic to the families experiencing them as the covid illnesses and deaths.  We won't know the incidence or the lasting effects for years.  There is also the very real risk of younger children falling behind and never catching up, and high schoolers falling behind and dropping out.

Just because certain leaders are cynically and dishonestly using it does not mean it's not important. Covid risk is not going to get close to zero in the foreseeable future without a vaccine. If you solely focus on minimizing harm from covid during this time you are putting others at significant risk. A balance needs to be struck. I don't know where the balance lies,, but it's certainly not closures with unspecified reopening timelines and advice to "deal with it."

 

Wife and I are raising my wife's niece who lost bother her parents at age 11 in 2018. She, as well as anyone, knows life is unfair, cruel, and unpredictable. We've been supportive but also haven't tried to shield her from the realities of life. Stress that life is difficult so enjoy the moments you can enjoy and above all else be persistent, be able to adapt, and sacrifice when needed. She's not only persevering through this pandemic she's thriving. She's hardened by tragedy and made strong by our loving support. 

Far too many Americans, especially middle to upper class, raise their children in a protective cocoon and render them wholly unable to handle adversity. Unable to persevere through stress and anxiety. Unable to have the strength and wisdom/experience needed. So they grow up, can't cope, and get thrown on all sorts of medication because they're weak. 

Now, I know there are conditions people have that require medication. Legitimate conditions. But Americans dope their kids up way too much on average because many of them are soft and were never given the tools and hardened enough to handle life. 

[Wanker Bob 379]

3 minutes ago, Dark Horse said:

So are these unknown long term health effects being factored into the decision to send my kids back to school? Or are they ok as long as they don’t die or kill their teacher?

They definitely are not being factored by the majority of republicans at the state or federal level. Trying a desperation hail Mary to not get crushed in November is all they're thinking about. Right now they're going to get crushed. They know it. So open the schools. Open everything up. If it works then they salvage their chances. If it doesn't and hundred thousand+ more die and everything gets worse? 

Oh well, they were going to get crushed anyway if they didn't try it. 

[Sawbonz 27561]

24 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

Wife and I are raising my wife's niece who lost bother her parents at age 11 in 2018. She, as well as anyone, knows life is unfair, cruel, and unpredictable. We've been supportive but also haven't tried to shield her from the realities of life. Stress that life is difficult so enjoy the moments you can enjoy and above all else be persistent, be able to adapt, and sacrifice when needed. She's not only persevering through this pandemic she's thriving. She's hardened by tragedy and made strong by our loving support. 

Far too many Americans, especially middle to upper class, raise their children in a protective cocoon and render them wholly unable to handle adversity. Unable to persevere through stress and anxiety. Unable to have the strength and wisdom/experience needed. So they grow up, can't cope, and get thrown on all sorts of medication because they're weak. 

Now, I know there are conditions people have that require medication. Legitimate conditions. But Americans dope their kids up way too much on average because many of them are soft and were never given the tools and hardened enough to handle life. 

Well I have to say I wasn’t expecting the “mental illness is weakness” take

[Veerbone 116]

1 hour ago, Wanker Bob said:

They definitely are not being factored by the majority of republicans at the state or federal level. Trying a desperation hail Mary to not get crushed in November is all they're thinking about. Right now they're going to get crushed. They know it. So open the schools. Open everything up. If it works then they salvage their chances. If it doesn't and hundred thousand+ more die and everything gets worse? 

Oh well, they were going to get crushed anyway if they didn't try it. 

Stop.

Per capita the states with the worst deaths, cases & hospitalizations are led by Democrats.  

[Mole 4333]

4 hours ago, Bevo14 said:

They shouldn't open schools and universities, but man online classes fuckin suck and universities need to think about testing and evaluation online more. Grading midterms and like 1/3 of these dudettes and dudes cheated. Of course, the answer they copied off the internet is completely wrong so it didn't exactly pay off.

When we moved online in the spring, I figured testing would be a disaster and that most students didn’t have the mental bandwidth for normal tests anyway, so we refocused to single, bigger projects such as papers for most of my classes. My approach was to have them do one thing well instead of fail at a million things. 
 

They wrote way better papers/projects than normal and I think the courses were just as rigorous if not more so. There were some tests, but they were pretty much projects in disguise. It feels absurd to me to give students access to the internet and not expect them to use it during an unproctored test. 

The gen-ed that I teach stayed with my original model of testing/homework with highly modified tests to make any plagiarism obvious. It ended up with a massive plagiarism headache at the end of the semester complete with angry emails from parents, ducking them with FERPA, getting FERPA approval from the student, and then dropping the hammer of what actually happened. It was a huge waste of my time, but it resulted in no appeals since the cheating was absurd and plainly obvious.

The gen-ed has always been a plagiarism magnet, but I’ve slowly modified it over the years to make it more of a hassle to cheat in. All of that came crashing down once the students were stuck at home. Idle hands and all.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20399]

34 minutes ago, Veerbone said:

Stop.

Per capita the states with the worst deaths, cases & hospitalizations are led by Democrats.  

Stop.

Per capita, the country with the worst deaths, cases and hospitalizations is led by a Republican.

[Patrick Bateman 3913]

27 minutes ago, Veerbone said:

Stop.

Per capita the states with the worst deaths, cases & hospitalizations are led by Democrats.  

That's not necessarily true.  Death per capita, yes and of course it makes sense considering main access points to the US and population density that the East Coast would get hit extremely hard in an initial wave scenario like COV.   We were woefully unprepared and caught flat footed as this region raced to figure out what to do.  They were really the unfortunate and sad guinea pigs.  Since then, 4 of the top 6 and 6 of the top 10 in cases per 100k are "red" states (7 of the top 11).  Hospitalizations is tough measure as many states didn't track the stat early and some states use different metrics so it's pretty difficult to discern.  Therefore, it's a difficult stat to use except as a lens in the current time frames to see capacity issues.

 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6559]

23 minutes ago, Patrick Bateman said:

That's not necessarily true.  Death per capita, yes and of course it makes sense considering main access points to the US and population density that the East Coast would get hit extremely hard in an initial wave scenario like COV.   We were woefully unprepared and caught flat footed as this region raced to figure out what to do.  They were really the unfortunate and sad guinea pigs.  Since then, 4 of the top 6 and 6 of the top 10 in cases per 100k are "red" states (7 of the top 11).  Hospitalizations is tough measure as many states didn't track the stat early and some states use different metrics so it's pretty difficult to discern.  Therefore, it's a difficult stat to use except as a lens in the current time frames to see capacity issues.

 

You are showing way to much logic and intelligence with the way you are looking at those stats.  Let’s just go with Republican President is great and saved millions of lives and the big, bad Democrats are the cause for all the deaths.  Occam”s Razor and whatnot.  Apparently someone’s sock in this thread believes what I just wrote.  Sad.

[Bama Chick 28596]

 
I am not sure that I totally understand your perspective here, Bama.  You are sending your daughter off to Auburn in a couple weeks, right?

Yep. And I’m not at all comfortable with it.

We talked about deferring but AU doesn’t allow deferrals. She’d lose her place and her scholarships.

We chose an apartment over a dorm to try and mitigate communal living.

She’s taking a blended schedule but I’m fully expecting it to go all online if cases get high enough. (Which they will.)

There won’t be any big campus approved events. I don’t think football will happen.

And she’s 18. She’s been so great about not going out for necessarily during all this. And I expect that behavior to continue.

We’re making the best worst choice.

My issue with the school situation is a lot of districts around here aren’t giving parents any options to make the best choice for their families. They are fully opening. Period. And lots of shaming being perpetrated against teachers and parents with reservations.

That’s my problem. All I see is claims from school leaders saying they have measures in place (yeah right) and everything will be business as usual along with the bullshit that “kids can’t catch it and if they do it’s mild and they can’t infect others”.

It’s the lack of honesty, lack of planning, false promises of “normality”, and shaming of anyone who pushes back.

I’m sending my kid off with worries. And as much as it pains my Bama heart to say so, AU has been very proactive and transparent, and shared multiple scenarios that they will enact depending on how things go.

They’ve listened to parent concerns and actually adjusted plans with parent input.

My main gripes are -

-Schools pitting their heads in the sand
-School leaders and some parents pretending there won’t be psychological issues if we just send the kids back. This mess is going to effect kids no matter what. Don’t try and force parents to send their kids back by bullying them with “Your damaging your kids psyche if you keep them home!”

There is no one perfect solution. But the “Send then back now!” crowd is pretending there is.

We parents have a lot of options - and frankly I think they all suck. It should be up to each family to chose the least sucky one for them.

[Anastasis 23469]

34 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Yep. And I’m not at all comfortable with it.

I understand and appreciate the conflict. 

 

[Anastasis 23469]

2 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Stop.

Per capita, the country with the worst deaths, cases and hospitalizations is led by a Republican.

Belgium is under Republican rule? Interdasting. 

[Veerbone 116]

2 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Stop.

Per capita, the country with the worst deaths, cases and hospitalizations is led by a Republican.

[Neonmoon 38129]

How old is that chart?

[Guest]

This one is July 27.

Confirmed deaths (absolute)	Population (in millions)	Deaths per million
Belgium	9,821	11.42	859.83
United Kingdom	45,752	66.49	688.11
Spain	28,432	46.72	608.51
Italy	35,107	60.43	580.94
Sweden	5,697	10.18	559.45
Peru	17,843	31.99	557.78
Chile	9,112	18.73	486.51
France	30,095	66.99	449.26
USA	146,720	327.17	448.46
Brazil	87,004	209.47	415.35
Ireland	1,764	4.85	363.45
Netherlands	6,140	17.23	356.33
Mexico	43,680	126.19	346.14

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Edited July 27, 2020 by slorch

[Pig Bellmont 8718]

9 hours ago, Veerbone said:

Stop.

Per capita the states with the worst deaths, cases & hospitalizations are led by Democrats.  

Do you believe there’s *anything* the US government could have done/can still do differently to better control the outbreak in this country? Because you sound like a disingenuous troll

[Pig Bellmont 8718]

Oh shit - is he Johnny Sack?

[Dahobbs 17534]

1 hour ago, slorch said:

This one is July 27.

Confirmed deaths (absolute)	Population (in millions)	Deaths per million
Belgium	9,821	11.42	859.83
United Kingdom	45,752	66.49	688.11
Spain	28,432	46.72	608.51
Italy	35,107	60.43	580.94
Sweden	5,697	10.18	559.45
Peru	17,843	31.99	557.78
Chile	9,112	18.73	486.51
France	30,095	66.99	449.26
USA	146,720	327.17	448.46
Brazil	87,004	209.47	415.35
Ireland	1,764	4.85	363.45
Netherlands	6,140	17.23	356.33
Mexico	43,680	126.19	346.14

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Yeah, absolute numbers the US isn't the worse. But, we are pretty close to top if you're looking at the current running 7-day average. We've been moving up this chart, and unfortunately, it looks like we will continue to do so. 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yeah, absolute numbers the US isn't the worse. But, we are pretty close to top if you're looking at the current running 7-day average. We've been moving up this chart, and unfortunately, it looks like we will continue to do so. 

But posters on here keep saying we are the worst, as if their opinion makes it true. The results are nothing to cheer about, for sure; but the pot banging gets old as fuck.

oh, and I still do not believe the Asian countries in the way they report.

[BradInATX 9208]

5 minutes ago, slorch said:

But posters on here keep saying we are the worst, as if their opinion makes it true. The results are nothing to cheer about, for sure; but the pot banging gets old as fuck.

oh, and I still do not believe the Asian countries in the way they report.

We're sort of middle of the pack on deaths. But we're one of the very very few first world countries on Earth whose cases chart doesn't look like an upside down V, which is a testament to the piss poor leadership we've had during this whole thing.

[Dahobbs 17534]

10 minutes ago, slorch said:

But posters on here keep saying we are the worst, as if their opinion makes it true. The results are nothing to cheer about, for sure; but the pot banging gets old as fuck.

oh, and I still do not believe the Asian countries in the way they report.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I assumed the "worst" language posters were either ignorant or referring current daily count (or 7-day average), as we've never been close to the top on total basis. Having a large population affords some advantages for per capita statistics, especially when the spread rate of the virus isn't directly tied to population size (if you start with one infected, you'll get same initial spread in both a 10 million and 100 million person country). At least, it isn't initially tied to it. Eventually population caps it. 

[lemonlime 5503]

But posters on here keep saying we are the worst, as if their opinion makes it true. The results are nothing to cheer about, for sure; but the pot banging gets old as fuck.
oh, and I still do not believe the Asian countries in the way they report.

We are middle of the pack right now. But the countries ahead of us on the list have had just about no new cases this summer. Meanwhile, on July 26 58,631 new cases were reported, perhaps underreported. Death is a lagging indicator. It’s like asking if you’d rather be in ny right now, which has about 700 cases/day. Or Florida where there’s over 10000 cases per day, by comparing deaths in March and April in those two states

[TXSG8R 3362]

8 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Yep. And I’m not at all comfortable with it.

We talked about deferring but AU doesn’t allow deferrals. She’d lose her place and her scholarships.

We chose an apartment over a dorm to try and mitigate communal living.

She’s taking a blended schedule but I’m fully expecting it to go all online if cases get high enough. (Which they will.)

There won’t be any big campus approved events. I don’t think football will happen.

And she’s 18. She’s been so great about not going out for necessarily during all this. And I expect that behavior to continue.

We’re making the best worst choice.

My issue with the school situation is a lot of districts around here aren’t giving parents any options to make the best choice for their families. They are fully opening. Period. And lots of shaming being perpetrated against teachers and parents with reservations.

That’s my problem. All I see is claims from school leaders saying they have measures in place (yeah right) and everything will be business as usual along with the bullshit that “kids can’t catch it and if they do it’s mild and they can’t infect others”.

It’s the lack of honesty, lack of planning, false promises of “normality”, and shaming of anyone who pushes back.

I’m sending my kid off with worries. And as much as it pains my Bama heart to say so, AU has been very proactive and transparent, and shared multiple scenarios that they will enact depending on how things go.

They’ve listened to parent concerns and actually adjusted plans with parent input.

My main gripes are -

-Schools pitting their heads in the sand
-School leaders and some parents pretending there won’t be psychological issues if we just send the kids back. This mess is going to effect kids no matter what. Don’t try and force parents to send their kids back by bullying them with “Your damaging your kids psyche if you keep them home!”

There is no one perfect solution. But the “Send then back now!” crowd is pretending there is.

We parents have a lot of options - and frankly I think they all suck. It should be up to each family to chose the least sucky one for them.

I think you are deluding yourself, and I say that as a parent of a kid going into his second year at UT.  Regardless of what the school does to reduce exposure through classes or official school events, your kid is going to be exposed to a ton of people regardless of football.  A ton of dumb college kids that think they are invulnerable and are making dumb decisions about exposure on a daily basis.  Your kid is likely going to drink which will impair whatever normal good decisions she would make WRT covid.  Sending your kid to campus is accepting that their chances of getting it are above average.  Its not ICU health care worker risk levels, but its way above what she would get if she was home.  My wife and I have accepted all those facts as our son prepares to move into his apartment in a couple of weeks.  

My biggest gripe with the big schools is why they aren't reducing their costs during this stuff.  My son's schedule is 75% online.  As great as the professors may be, academically its never going to be as good as in-class education.  A lot of the bonuses that big schools offer likely wont happen this fall, or even this year.  Big sporting events, on campus events, etc.  We are fortunate and weren't impacted financially by COVID, but we know plenty of people are.  If you are reducing services, you should reduce the bill for said services.

[Nivek 16929]

I was at Weatherford when they lost >$700,000,000 in a single year.  and compensated the CEO with $7 million that year.   I thought it was amazing how many people said "well it would have worse if I it wasn't for his leadership"   The company was a disorganized mess and their solution every year was to rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic.   His leadership really made the company a disorganized mess which impacted the firm negatively long after he left.  

[TXSG8R 3362]

26 minutes ago, slorch said:

But posters on here keep saying we are the worst, as if their opinion makes it true. The results are nothing to cheer about, for sure; but the pot banging gets old as fuck.

oh, and I still do not believe the Asian countries in the way they report.

I can see mistrusting China and the NORKs, but open democratic countries like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc?  Why would you mistrust their numbers?  How do you think they could hide an outbreak in places that dense without social media exposing it?  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

5 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

I can see mistrusting China and the NORKs, but open democratic countries like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc?  Why would you mistrust their numbers?  How do you think they could hide an outbreak in places that dense without social media exposing it?  

It falls in the every accusation is an admission policy. We are supposedly a democracy and our government tries to fuck with the numbers at every turn.  Do you think Florida numbers are accurate?

Meanwhile, South Korea isolates and contact traces.  It works now because they actually locked down. We never really did. Half ass measures get half ass results. 

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

Miami Marlins have had a breakout in Ghent clubhouse and MLB has cancelled their game tonight.

Now the tram they just played (Philly) is trying to figure out their path.

Took one whole weekend.

[RomaVicta 29907]

13 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

 

"Fake News" CNN aired a response to a question about testing which Trump then uses as a source. The tweet Trump retweets says the guest is "calling out" Tapper when, in actuality, Tapper asked a question after quoting an expert and gave his guest uncontested time to respond to every point.

What more would a reasonable person expect of a news outlet? Tapper cited the source of the observation in the question.

Meanwhile, over on FOX, Portland is under siege from violent, lawless anarchists as the whole country burns to the ground ahead of a socialist takeover. And FOX doesn't even meet the presidents needs for slanted "reporting!" Trump wants more.

 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20399]

Have we been Johnny Sacked?

Edited July 27, 2020 by Horn Under a Bad Sign

[lemonlime 5503]

7 hours ago, Veerbone said:

The chart is clearly old and/or inaccurate.   I can't actually find the original to verify anything.  But going to The Washington Post, where you claim the chart is from:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/ deaths per capita are:

Spain 60.9

Italy 58.01

France 45.1

UK 68.9

Belgium 86.0

Netherlands 35.7

Switzerland 23.2

U.S. 44.0

Meanwhile, there have been just about no new cases in every single of those countries, except the U.S., where we reported 59,737 on July 26.

[Patrick Bateman 3913]

So MLB may only make it a weekend..... as of this post, Marlins are rumored to have 12 players and 4 coaches test positive in the last 36 hours.

Everyone will say...... fuck it, drive on, this was going to happen and that's mainly because it's the Marlins.  But imagine if this was the Yankees?  Or the Red Sox?  Or the Cubs?  Now imagine when this becomes 2 teams?  College football looks (Hope not) almost hopeless.  NFL only if they get their shit together and look at hockey and the NBA.  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

8 minutes ago, Patrick Bateman said:

So MLB may only make it a weekend..... as of this post, Marlins are rumored to have 12 players and 4 coaches test positive in the last 36 hours.

Everyone will say...... fuck it, drive on, this was going to happen and that's mainly because it's the Marlins.  But imagine if this was the Yankees?  Or the Red Sox?  Or the Cubs?  Now imagine when this becomes 2 teams?  College football looks (Hope not) almost hopeless.  NFL only if they get their shit together and look at hockey and the NBA.  

I guess the Phillies are the team to watch. If it spread to them on the field, then the season is over. 

[Anastasis 23469]

14 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

I guess the Phillies are the team to watch. If it spread to them on the field, then the season is over. 

If it spread to the field lots of seasons may be over. 

[406W30th 1111]

[4th&Five 41549]

 

[Jive Turkey 12598]

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

I think you are deluding yourself, and I say that as a parent of a kid going into his second year at UT.  Regardless of what the school does to reduce exposure through classes or official school events, your kid is going to be exposed to a ton of people regardless of football.  A ton of dumb college kids that think they are invulnerable and are making dumb decisions about exposure on a daily basis.  Your kid is likely going to drink which will impair whatever normal good decisions she would make WRT covid.  Sending your kid to campus is accepting that their chances of getting it are above average.  Its not ICU health care worker risk levels, but its way above what she would get if she was home.  My wife and I have accepted all those facts as our son prepares to move into his apartment in a couple of weeks.  
My biggest gripe with the big schools is why they aren't reducing their costs during this stuff.  My son's schedule is 75% online.  As great as the professors may be, academically its never going to be as good as in-class education.  A lot of the bonuses that big schools offer likely wont happen this fall, or even this year.  Big sporting events, on campus events, etc.  We are fortunate and weren't impacted financially by COVID, but we know plenty of people are.  If you are reducing services, you should reduce the bill for said services.

I don’t know how it works in Texas but universities in Alabama legally can’t reduce any costs. There was a big stink from Auburn back in the 70s because Alabama made it super easy for out of state students to qualify for in-state tuition and Auburn said it put them at an unfair disadvantage in competing for OOS students.

So the legislature passed a law that puts all state schools on a level playing field in regards to tuition. I don’t know all the ins and outs but basically all Alabama universities tuition rates are tied to state funding and if a university tries to lower their tuition outside of state set guidelines they lose funding.

There’s been some talk that the legislature might enact some kind of emergency policy but I don’t think it will happen.

[Continental Op 3934]

2 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Miami Marlins have had a breakout in Ghent clubhouse and MLB has cancelled their game tonight.

Now the tram they just played (Philly) is trying to figure out their path.

Took one whole weekend.

I must have missed MLB's expansion to Belgium.  

[TXSG8R 3362]

7 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

I don’t know how it works in Texas but universities in Alabama legally can’t reduce any costs. There was a big stink from Auburn back in the 70s because Alabama made it super easy for out of state students to qualify for in-state tuition and Auburn said it put them at an unfair disadvantage in competing for OOS students.

So the legislature passed a law that puts all state schools on a level playing field in regards to tuition. I don’t know all the ins and outs but basically all Alabama universities tuition rates are tied to state funding and if a university tries to lower their tuition outside of state set guidelines they lose funding.

There’s been some talk that the legislature might enact some kind of emergency policy but I don’t think it will happen.

That would prevent a single school from reducing their tuition as an advantage, but it wouldn't prevent all the schools in that same state system from collectively lowering their costs together.  I don't know what the situation is in Texas, or other schools either, it just seems like its setting up another fight when these schools inevitably have to push all classes online again and cancel all sports and stuff.  Schools that wont allow a deferral and are essentially forcing kids to choose between getting into their dream school or lose their slot/scholarships to avoid illness are especially shitty. 

Law dogs right now

 

[Bevo14 8311]

12 hours ago, Mole said:

When we moved online in the spring, I figured testing would be a disaster and that most students didn’t have the mental bandwidth for normal tests anyway, so we refocused to single, bigger projects such as papers for most of my classes. My approach was to have them do one thing well instead of fail at a million things. 
 

They wrote way better papers/projects than normal and I think the courses were just as rigorous if not more so. There were some tests, but they were pretty much projects in disguise. It feels absurd to me to give students access to the internet and not expect them to use it during an unproctored test. 

The gen-ed that I teach stayed with my original model of testing/homework with highly modified tests to make any plagiarism obvious. It ended up with a massive plagiarism headache at the end of the semester complete with angry emails from parents, ducking them with FERPA, getting FERPA approval from the student, and then dropping the hammer of what actually happened. It was a huge waste of my time, but it resulted in no appeals since the cheating was absurd and plainly obvious.

The gen-ed has always been a plagiarism magnet, but I’ve slowly modified it over the years to make it more of a hassle to cheat in. All of that came crashing down once the students were stuck at home. Idle hands and all.

Yeah, that's why there wasn't a specific restriction on the internet. The only thing they were restricted from doing was collaborating with other students, which isn't enforceable, but if you have access to all this shit and still need to copy one of your buddy's shit, please don't build anything that people will need to rely on in the future.

[Wanker Bob 379]

2 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

So MLB may only make it a weekend..... as of this post, Marlins are rumored to have 12 players and 4 coaches test positive in the last 36 hours.

Everyone will say...... fuck it, drive on, this was going to happen and that's mainly because it's the Marlins.  But imagine if this was the Yankees?  Or the Red Sox?  Or the Cubs?  Now imagine when this becomes 2 teams?  College football looks (Hope not) almost hopeless.  NFL only if they get their shit together and look at hockey and the NBA.  

it was always going to be impossible to complete a season without having a giant bubble where the players, coaches, staff, and officials have almost zero contact with the outside world. Any sport where these people have contact with the general public will end in mass infections. 

Just another in a growing mountain of evidence showing young people and children can get this and transmit it just as easily no matter what Republicans try to tell you

[HenryJames 66052]

 

[bolverk 29672]

11 hours ago, Veerbone said:

 

6 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

How old is that chart?

 

5 hours ago, slorch said:

This one is July 27.

Confirmed deaths (absolute)	Population (in millions)	Deaths per million
Belgium	9,821	11.42	859.83
United Kingdom	45,752	66.49	688.11
Spain	28,432	46.72	608.51
Italy	35,107	60.43	580.94
Sweden	5,697	10.18	559.45
Peru	17,843	31.99	557.78
Chile	9,112	18.73	486.51
France	30,095	66.99	449.26
USA	146,720	327.17	448.46
Brazil	87,004	209.47	415.35
Ireland	1,764	4.85	363.45
Netherlands	6,140	17.23	356.33
Mexico	43,680	126.19	346.14

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

 

3 hours ago, lemonlime said:

The chart is clearly old and/or inaccurate.   I can't actually find the original to verify anything.  But going to The Washington Post, where you claim the chart is from:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/ deaths per capita are:

Spain 60.9

Italy 58.01

France 45.1

UK 68.9

Belgium 86.0

Netherlands 35.7

Switzerland 23.2

U.S. 44.0

Meanwhile, there have been just about no new cases in every single of those countries, except the U.S., where we reported 59,737 on July 26.

Obvious troll is obvious. Either put him on ignore or neg him to Bolivia. Your call.

Google image search leads to the chart and accompanying story from April 17.

[elfenix 34240]

"“We made the decision that we’re going to continue to do this and we’re going to continue to be responsible and just play the game as hard as we can,” Rojas said."

 

https://www.inquirer.com/phillies/miami-marlins-coronavirus-outbreak-phillies-mlb-season-20200727.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

 

Idonotthinkthatwordmeanswhatyouthinkitmeans.gif