Coronavirus Adventures

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pinback
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by pinback »

I, and the entire Jolt Country community, accept your apology.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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Flack
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Flack »

Paul, don't listen to him -- you were just reposting what someone else had said! I demand you apologize for apologizing!
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Tdarcos
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Tdarcos »

Flack wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:08 pm Paul, don't listen to him -- you were just reposting what someone else had said! I demand you apologize for apologizing!
At this point, I'm sorry alright. I'm sorry my parents didn't use contraception!
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Tdarcos
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Tdarcos »

Bus passenger uses live snake as a face mask

Transportation officials in the UK have warned commuters not to use live snakes as face coverings, after a bus passenger was spotted with a large reptile wrapped around his head.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bus-p ... election_2

A Transport for Greater Manchester spokesperson told CNN that passengers are expected to follow government guidance on wearing face coverings on public transportation during the coronavirus pandemic, unless they are exempt.

"This needn't be a surgical mask ... passengers can make their own or wear something suitable, such as a scarf or bandana," the representative said in a statement.

"While there is a small degree of interpretation that can be applied to this, we do not believe it extends to the use of snakeskin -- especially when still attached to the snake."
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The Happiness Engine
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by The Happiness Engine »

RetroRomper wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:33 am Both Bryan B and The Happiness Engine have an open pass to drink ANYTHING in my house in moderation, including the pretentious, high shelf Japanese and Bog whiskies. And if they insist, the Tide Pods because those crazy kids these days.
I always tell people asking for a drink, "It's OUR booze, unless there is not enough, in which case it is definitely MY booze."

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Billy Mays
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Billy Mays »

Yeah, that out of date and misleading photograph is nothing like this gigantic pool party held in Wuhan last month.

The epicenter of the "pandemic":

Image

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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Jizaboz »

Kung-Flu?

“Say that again?”

Kung.. Flu?

“Say that again.”
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

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Re: Federal Judge Rules PA COVID Restrictions UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Post by Tdarcos »

Just one of many reports about this just released decision from a Federal District Court in Pennsylvania. It only just came out a few days ago. I heard about it from a YouTube video by Viva Frei, a Montreal lawyer. The following summary is from Prince Law Offices Blog:

In a decision just issued in County of Butler, et al. v. Governor Wolf, et al., Judge William Stickman, IV of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania has ruled that “(1) the congregate gathering limits imposed by Defendants’ mitigation orders violate the right of assembly enshrined in the First Amendment; (2) that the stay-at-home and business closure components of Defendants’ orders violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and (3) the business closure components of the Defendants’ orders violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

An image only (can't quote) copy of the PDF of the decision from Govinfo.gov can be downloaded here and the text is attached to this message as a 42K .7z file, but for those that don't want to read through it, I'll read some choice quotes later, but first, this intervening issue:

Separately, in an unrelated case, Friends of Danny DeVito v. Wolf, 227 A. 3d 872 (2020) the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied the plaintiffs had any right at all to challenge Governor Wolf's order essentially shutting down businesses in the state, and denying any further hearings for waivers even though more than 10,000 requests were not even allowed to be heard. This case is on review to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (from Google) can be found here, while the summary and PDF of the opinion can be found on Justia, at this link. The PDF of the amended brief by the petitioners (plaintiffs) requesting certiorari (permission to appeal) to the U.S. Supreme Court can be found here, while the PDF of respondent's (defendants') brief by Governor Wolf can be found here. The actual U.S. Supreme Court docket (list of what's happening in that case) is shown here.

But here are some highlights of what the Federal District Court said, coming to the opposite conclusion:
  • (T)he Court believes that Defendants undertook their actions in a well-intentioned effort to protect Pennsylvanians from the virus. However, good intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge.
  • In an emergency, even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions—while expedient in the face of an emergency situation—may persist long after immediate danger has passed.
  • Within the Governor’s office, a “group” “was formed to work on issues related to the pandemic” both on the “economic development side and pertaining to the business closures” and “on the health side, teams were formed to work to understand the progress of the pandemic.” ... The “group” never reduced its purpose to writing ... None of their “hundreds, if not thousands” of meetings were open to the public, no meeting minutes were kept, and “formality was not the first thing on [their] minds.” ... Its members consisted solely of employees from the Governor’s policy and planning office, none of whom possess a medical background or are experts in infection control.
  • Thus, at the outset of an emergency, it may be appropriate for courts to tolerate very blunt rules. In general, that is what has happened thus far during the COVID-19 pandemic. But a public health emergency does not give Governors and other public officials carte blanche to disregard the Constitution for as long as the medical problem persists. As more medical and scientific evidence becomes available, and as States have time to craft policies in light of that evidence, courts should expect policies that more carefully account for constitutional rights.
  • The principles of proportionality and balancing driving most modern constitutional standards permit greater incursions into civil liberties in times of greater communal need. That is the essence of the “liberty regulated by law” described by the Court in [Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11]. Finally, the most critical failure of the suspension model is that it does not account for the importance of an independent judiciary in a crisis—‘“as perhaps the only institution that is in any structural position to push back against potential overreaching by the local, state, or federal political branches .. . . Otherwise, we risk ending up with decisions like Korematsu v. United States**—in which courts sustain gross violations of civil rights because they are either unwilling or unable to meaningfully look behind the government’s purported claims of exigency.
  • Two considerations inform this decision—the ongoing and open-ended nature of the restrictions and the need for an independent judiciary to serve as a check on the exercise of emergency government power.
  • Rather, the record shows that Defendants view the presence of disease mitigation restrictions upon the citizens of Pennsylvania as a “new normal” and they have no actual plan to return to a state where all restrictions are lifted. It bears repeating; after six months, there is no plan to return to a situation where there are no restrictions imposed upon the people of the Commonwealth.
  • There is no question, as Justice Alito reasoned in Calvary Chapel, that courts may provide state and local officials greater deference when making time-sensitive decisions in the maelstrom of an emergency. But that deference cannot go on forever. It is no longer March. It is now September and the record makes clear that Defendants have no anticipated end-date to their emergency interventions. Courts surely may be willing to give in a fleeting crisis. But here, the duration of the crisis—in which days have turned into weeks and weeks into months—already exceeds natural disasters or other episodic emergencies and its length remains uncertain.
  • While respecting the immediate role of the political branches to address emergent situations, the judiciary cannot be overly deferential to their decisions. To do so risks subordinating the guarantees of the Constitution, guarantees which are the patrimony of every citizen, to the immediate need for an expedient solution. This is especially the case where, as here, measures directly impacting citizens are taken outside the normal legislative or administrative process by Defendants alone. There is no question that our founders abhorred the concept of one-person rule. They decried government by fiat. Absent a robust system of checks and balances, the guarantees of liberty set forth in the Constitution are just ink on parchment.
  • As the Supreme Court has observed: “[t]he Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its imitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.” Home Building & Loan Ass'n. v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 425 (1934).
  • The Court also recognizes that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Friends of Danny DeVito v. Wolf, 227 A.3d 872 (Pa. 2020), addresses some of the federal constitutional issues presented in this case and the court reviewed those issues through a more deferential standard. While the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is final on questions of Pennsylvania law, it does not bind the Court on federal questions.
  • Although this nation has faced many epidemics and pandemics and state and local governments have employed a variety of interventions in response, there have never previously been lockdowns of entire populations—much less for lengthy and indefinite periods of time. One term that has frequently been employed to describe the lockdowns is “quarantine.”
  • The plain language of the statute makes clear that the lockdown effectuated by the stay-at-home orders is not a quarantine. A quarantine requires, as a threshold matter, that the person subject to the “limitation of freedom of movement” be “exposed to a communicable disease.” ... Moreover, critically, the duration of a quarantine is statutorily limited to “a period of time equal to the longest usual incubation period of the disease.” The lockdown plainly exceeded that period. Indeed, Defendants’ witnesses, particularly Ms. Boateng, conceded upon examination that the lockdown cannot be considered a quarantine.
  • Defendants attempt to justify their extraordinary “mitigation” efforts by pointing to actions taken to combat the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago. ... But an examination of the history of mitigation efforts in response to the Spanish Flu—by far the deadliest pandemic in American history—reveals that nothing remotely approximating lockdowns were imposed.
  • Even if the lockdown effectuated by the stay-at-home order could be classified as a quarantine, it would nevertheless far exceed the traditional understanding of a state’s quarantine power. ... The power to subject a citizen to quarantine is subject to both procedural and substantive due process restraints. “At a minimum, these include the requirement that quarantine be imposed only when it is necessary for public health (or is the least-restrictive alternative) and only when it is accompanied by procedural due process protections, including notice, the right to a hearing before an independent decision-maker either before or shortly after confinement, the right to counsel, and the requirement that the state prove its case with clear and convincing evidence.” ... Defendants’ stay-at-home orders imposed a statewide lockdown on every resident of the Commonwealth that included none of these basic constitutional safeguards.
  • Not only are lockdowns like the one imposed by Defendants’ stay-at-home orders unknown in response to any previous pandemic or epidemic, they are not as much as mentioned in recent guidance offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”).
  • Thus, the stay-at-home orders impacted liberties not merely limited to the act of traveling, but the very liberty interests arising from the fruits of travel, such as the right of association and even the right to privacy—i.e., the right simply to be left alone while otherwise acting in a lawful manner. Our Courts have long recognized that beyond the right of travel, there is a fundamental tight to simply be out and about in public.
  • In addition, the lack of narrow tailoring is highlighted by the fact that broad, open-ended population lockdowns have never been used to combat any other disease. In other words, in response to every prior epidemic and pandemic (even more serious pandemics, such as the Spanish Flu) states and local governments have been able to employ other tools that did not involve locking down their citizens.
He goes on with a lot more details explaining why this order is just too broad in view of the fact we're not now in emergency conditions and less drastic mesures can be taken. But I've probably gone on way too long, but it is fascinating reading.




** Korematsu v. United States was the U.S. Supreme court case allowing the U.S. government to put American Citizens in concentration camps.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Billy Mays wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 9:56 pm Yeah, that out of date and misleading photograph is nothing like this gigantic pool party held in Wuhan last month.

The epicenter of the "pandemic":

Image
Man.

I don't know if other people feel the same way, Billy, but I'll put down what I believe.

1. I feel the virus originated from some guy in Wuhan eating wet bat. This seems insane to me, but until the scientific consensus is otherwise, I'll go with that. I am of course going to change my take on this when there are better facts around, but I realize we may never get them.
2. I feel that China acted like how China did, and didn't give a fuck about it until it was too late and had escaped the world.
3. I don't trust any numbers coming out of a murderous, organ-harvesting dictatorship.

Is ANY of this agreeable to you so far?
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Billy Mays
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Billy Mays »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Sun Sep 20, 2020 10:23 am 1. I feel the virus originated from some guy in Wuhan eating wet bat. This seems insane to me, but until the scientific consensus is otherwise, I'll go with that. I am of course going to change my take on this when there are better facts around, but I realize we may never get them.
2. I feel that China acted like how China did, and didn't give a fuck about it until it was too late and had escaped the world.
3. I don't trust any numbers coming out of a murderous, organ-harvesting dictatorship.
We are in complete agreement. I can't believe this shit. Not to sound rude or anything...but can you and me move onto talking about something else so that this one beautiful, perfect moment does not get disturbed?

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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Billy Mays wrote: Sun Sep 20, 2020 8:43 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Sun Sep 20, 2020 10:23 am 1. I feel the virus originated from some guy in Wuhan eating wet bat. This seems insane to me, but until the scientific consensus is otherwise, I'll go with that. I am of course going to change my take on this when there are better facts around, but I realize we may never get them.
2. I feel that China acted like how China did, and didn't give a fuck about it until it was too late and had escaped the world.
3. I don't trust any numbers coming out of a murderous, organ-harvesting dictatorship.
We are in complete agreement. I can't believe this shit. Not to sound rude or anything...but can you and me move onto talking about something else so that this one beautiful, perfect moment does not get disturbed?
Okay now we do the entire thing again with our shirts off.
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Tdarcos
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Tdarcos »

Michigan Supreme Court strikes down Gov. Whitmer’s virus orders
Orders remain in effect for at least 21 days

(October 2) LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday struck down months of orders by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that were aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, saying she drew authority from a 1945 law that is unconstitutional.

The decision is an extraordinary development in a monthslong conflict between Whitmer, a Democrat, and the Republicans who control the Legislature and have complained that they’ve been shut out of major orders that have restricted education, the economy and health care.

Coincidentally, the court’s opinion emerged on the same day that Whitmer’s critics submitted more than 539,000 signatures in a bid to repeal the 1945 law.

WDIV-TV Detroit "Click On 4 News"
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Is this a hot take? What am I meant to see here?
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Billy Mays
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Billy Mays »

Basically the way I see things in regards to the Michigan ruling is that you have 3 viable options to take regardless of where you live in the United States:

1. Do whatever you want, you're never going to get covid because you're an absolute stud.

2. Never leave your house, invite anyone over, or have anything delivered. You're not poor so even if you're not a prepper you probably still have at least 6 months worth of food in your house as long as you eat like a human being. 6 months is a long enough time to figure out how to make a bathtub garden to get you past that.

3. Always wear a mask, protective goggles, latex gloves (change them out regularly), and be sure to cover yourself from head to toe in karo syrup. Especially when you're in bed sleeping, that's when most people let their guard down.

Me personally, I've been getting by just fine sticking to the 3rd option, but either way we've all been living with this thing for almost a year now. It's no big deal at this point.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Pinback related something to me recently. "I wear the mask but I don't follow the arrows." Not sure if you have arrows in your neck of the woods, Billy (I have no idea where you hail from and I have no idea how far the arrow thing has spread, so this is me saying I just don't know) but out here at a grocery store they want us to go down aisles in different directions.

Now I feel like we already talked about this. ?????

Anyway. Syrup sounds delicious. I have two bottles of Vermont syrup in the house and accidentally opened them both. I am glad to have now found a use for the smaller bottle.
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Billy Mays
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Billy Mays »

All maple syrup will do is attract ants, it has to be corn syrup and more specifically karo brand corn syrup; which by the way will also attract ants but at least comes with the benefit of creating an impenetrable barrier against covid 19.

Not sure about the arrows. There seems to be more signs at places and stuff painted on the floors but I'm not reading or even looking at any of that, so there may be arrows but again I'm not really sure. I know how to walk and I know what aisle the corn flakes are in so anything past that they should post a cop if it was something important.

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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Tdarcos »

Arrows: in order to prevent people from bunching up or getting too close by needing to pass each other, stores are being told to implement "one way" aisles. The theory being, if everyone in a lane goes the same direction, you don't have people passing each other closely, decreasing the chance of spread. However, if nobody else is in the same aisle as you - which, even pre-covid when I last shopped in a suermarket or Target sometimes haappened - it doesn't really matter if you go in the direction of the arrows.
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Flack
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Flack »

Last night one of my in-laws told me that "someone" is monitoring gatherings of Republicans and spraying those areas with coronavirus. They were being 100% sincere. "You ever notice how only Republicans are getting coronavirus?" At the exact same time, Fox news was showing a presidential rally where hundreds of people without masks had gathered.
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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by uruzrune »

Maybe the Conservative take on Covid is so that the maximum amount of people die so that the Second Coming happens and the remaining "devoted" are Raptured.

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Re: Coronavirus Adventures

Post by Flack »

Change "raptured" with "ruptured" and I'm in.
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