381–390 of 954 posts
In Santa Clara County, CA (Silicon Valley), a group of 40 principals got together in person a few weeks back to discuss reopening plans. And they got COVID. Is it any wonder that teachers don't trust that they will be kept safe?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump did not lose the popular vote. There is no contest for the popular vote. Perhaps one party should try moving a bit to campaign according to the actual contest at hand, rather than try to rewrite the rules. You assume the Democrats would win a popular vote easily. First, Republicans would actually campaign in California for a change. They might even move left a tad on some issues. Democrats might decide it's the…
> Trump did not lose the popular vote. Dear god, do facts not matter at all? He absolutely lost the popular vote. He won the election through the electoral college. It's the system we have and it's what determines the election but to say he didn't lost the popular vote is false and revisionist.
Here's a football game. Team A scores 17 points on 284 yards of offense. Team B scores 10 points but has 317 yards of offense. Team B's fans say "We won on total offense!" That's great, Team B fans. Here, have a lollipop.
Why am I being so condescending? Because no football game is decided based on total offense. They're decide on points. Team B "won" something that is a statistical category, not a game.
In the same way, Hillary won a statistic, not an election. So all this "Trump lost the popular vote" is... yeah, so what? Winning the popular vote plus six bucks will get you a latte at Starbucks. And Democrats knew what the rules were going into the election, and have known ever since. Who cares about the popular vote? It's totally irrelevant. They. Lost. The. Election.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you think it would be better under a different political leader? I think it’s great that you’re still such an optimist
Different political leader - we don't know. A different political leader who was not divisive and dismissive of science - yes, it would have been better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want an increase in mask supply, you have to either allow the pricing mechanism to do its job, or force people to make masks. Given the (very popular) laws against price gauging, it seems like the only viable option is to force some companies to manufacture more masks. Production capacity is available, but at a higher cost than is currently economical. All that being said, your second point seems correct to me…
> If you want an increase in mask supply, you have to either allow the pricing mechanism to do its job, or force people to make masks. Those aren't the only options. Some mask manufacturers could scale up manufacturing as long as they had a medium/long term contract to make the investment worth it. The current administration keeps blaming the previous one for drawing down on the federal PPP supply without replenishin…
The claim is "dubious", so (therefore) there was exactly no reason for this to happen?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dubious - "questionable or suspect as to true nature or quality"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exactly - "in a manner or measure or to a degree or number that strictly conforms to a fact or condition"
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/08/donald-tru...
> One thing the stockpile clearly doesn’t have enough of is face masks. News reports found that the N95 face masks were not substantially replenished after H1N1 in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration. (continues)
https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-admin-allegedly-deplete...
> “The national stockpile used to be somewhat more robust. In 2006, Congress provided supplemental funds to add 104 million N95 masks and 52 million surgical masks in an effort to prepare for a flu pandemic,” Bloomberg News continued. “But after the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog orders for the N95 variety, the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and didn’t build back the supply.”
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/06/828303817/surgical-mask-manuf...
> KELLY: I mean, I have read that since that experience, you have been sounding the alarm. I know you wrote to President Trump. I know you wrote President Obama before him, warning that it wasn't going to be if but when that there would be another...
> BOWEN: I'm not. No. No, no, no. You know, I have been off and on. Of course, I've been selling this message for 14 years, but I'm really not angry. I'm puzzled. And I think what I've been fighting is not the government, not President Obama, not President Trump. I think it's human nature. I think since everybody ignored it - I mean, reporters ignored it. Pandemic experts ignored it. Our government ignored it. Hospitals ignored it. Everybody ignored it. So to me, it's a human nature problem. So I'm over my anger.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XMOzAY...
> “Prestige Ameritech is presently the lone voice warning of the insecure U.S. mask supply,” Bowen wrote to President Barack Obama in June 2010. “Apathy and inertia are our biggest hurdles.”
(Note that this is from The Washington Post)
I don't disagree that there's no GOOD reason for this to happen, other than the unfortunate reality that human beings are not very good at thinking, at least compared to how well we perceive ourselves to think. As far as I can tell, almost all humans are living in some sort of a severe state of delusion at all times, our minds and societies haven't had nearly enough time to evolve to accommodate the massive increase in complexity in the last few hundred years, let alone the last 20.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you willing to die for the economy? Ask your kids, are they OK with you dying so that money can be made, maybe collect on some life insurance money? Are you OK with your kids potentially dying (rare but not zero) just to keep them busy during the day? I bet not.
Yes. And there are many millions of unafraid people. Doesn't mean they aren't cautious, but they understand risk. Children have a higher chance of dying in a car accident, are you going to stop driving tomorrow, because you know a non-zero chance of dying is all you will accept.
Some numbers related to this claim:
In 2018 about 37,000 people died in the U.S. in motor vehicle accidents, not all of them were children.
Currently, about 250,000 people are dying per year from COVID19 in the U.S. Not all of them are children.
It's not clear to me that your claim is true. Granted, only a few COVID19 deaths are children, but how many auto fatalities involve children?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a vaccine cannot happen, neither can herd immunity. I read it has been eliminated in New Zealand, so elimination is possible with good government: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-coronavir...
> elimination is possible with good government Good government, plus living on a small island that can close itself from the rest of the world. Most countries aren't in that situation.
The US did not do so, because it was too disruptive to business, and because good, sober governance has been an explicit non-goal for the past few decades, on both state and federal level - but especially in the last few years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think one of the things that has been so disheartening to me about the pandemic is that it has shown how we just can't really do anything anymore in the US. I mean, just look at PPE. I understand being a little flat footed when the pandemic first started, but it's been nearly 6 months now. I would have expected mass mobilization to pump out N95 masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, etc. by the millions. I mean, look…
I would argue that the high salaries in the software industry have siphoned technologists from other industries that make physical products. Some of that is intrinsic, since making stuff has smaller margins than pushing bytes. But a lot of it is hidebound business practices. For example, should a manager always make more money than their reports? In many industries the answer is yes, which is a rejection of supply an…
For the teachers whose calling is teaching, I can see them moving to this part-time: https://outschool.com My wife and I were concerned about our daughter getting isolated. We don't want her on social media, but we do think it is important for her to connect with her affinity group, and explore her passions. I found out about outschool recently, and it looked like exactly what we needed to address this. The classes a…
So, keeping my child engaged for 5 days a week would cost about 150$ and 45$ go to the platform (judging from glancing over class duration/classes per week and cost). Can somebody tell me what value outschool adds aside from being an agency?
You can do the equivalent of this using Youtube videos - the onus is on the parent to figure out how to block Youtube from auto-suggesting/auto-playing click bait viral videos after the tutorial you want the child to watch is over.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did nyc mess up? I can just think of the nursing homes, but that was due to cdc guidelines, which coumo had to implement additional guidelines.
It was the subway. Extensive use of the subway is what sets NYC apart from all other cities in the US, and it was the main vector. NYC should have been much more diligent about cleaning the subway and limiting concurrent access. I understand due to the sheer volume and necessity of subway use the chosen policies may have been the best. But the subway has been overcrowded and near the breaking point for years and litt…