Random Rant Thread

[miscmisc]

This is a very good thread on the SARS-CoV-2 variants.

[K1power]

miscmisc said:

I know a couple of wrestlers who had it pretty bad too, "by far the worst flu that I have ever experienced, bar none," and those people tend to get sick very often, so when they say "by far the worst," that means something.

I'm not trying to fabricate a theory or anything here, but fighters/wrestlers/muscular types seem to tend to get very sick. The Rock suffered a lot too, and so were workout freaks like Chris Cuomo and a Japanese friend of mine (36 years old).

If Badr's performance last night is anything to go by I'd say you're on to something.

That was one unhealthy looking man. Heavy breathing from the first bell, on shaky legs, falling down at every opportunity. Overall just looked like an extremely tired dude. Definitely not like someone who should be anywhere near a ring in a high profile fight. Got his nose broken as the cherry on top.

Only thing that looked on point was the muscle mass, which ironically might have contributed to this.

[miscmisc]

Britain is quite possibly the best country in the world.

[miscmisc]

Dec 20, 2020 13:07:09 GMT 1 K1power said:

miscmisc said:

I know a couple of wrestlers who had it pretty bad too, "by far the worst flu that I have ever experienced, bar none," and those people tend to get sick very often, so when they say "by far the worst," that means something.

I'm not trying to fabricate a theory or anything here, but fighters/wrestlers/muscular types seem to tend to get very sick. The Rock suffered a lot too, and so were workout freaks like Chris Cuomo and a Japanese friend of mine (36 years old).

If Badr's performance last night is anything to go by I'd say you're on to something.

That was one unhealthy looking man. Heavy breathing from the first bell, on shaky legs, falling down at every opportunity. Overall just looked like an extremely tired dude. Definitely not like someone who should be anywhere near a ring in a high profile fight. Got his nose broken as the cherry on top.

Only thing that looked on point was the muscle mass, which ironically might have contributed to this.

Yeah, right?

Workout freaks tend to get sick more often than regular people in general. My workout freak friend got Covid in April, and was useless for four full months. Badr should rest.

[miscmisc]

Will these braindead Trumpian toiletstains ever actually read Julius Caesar or watch the play and realize that by "crossing the Rubicon" Caesar ended the fucking Republic, turned it into an empire under dictatorship and was brutally assassinated five years later?

Will they ever? Or am I asking too much?

[miscmisc]

The UK's "Christmas bubble" policy was complete garbage with or without the "new strain." Britons should rather feel relieved now that it has been (mostly) cancelled.

[miscmisc]

Scott Gottlieb on the London variant:

[miscmisc]

It's probably a good idea to stop flights from/to the UK now, especially for European countries. The situation is bad enough in most countries, and no one can afford to get more bad news. It's above all *psychologically* important for the population.

And it's good for Britons too, although it will undoubtedly cause enormous inconvenience and even tragedies for the people who desperately need to go to the UK/go out of the UK to some place else now.

Not doing anything at all is sheer negligence on the government's part. It's not even about how dangerous the variant is. It's about the management. The British ministers have already called it "out of control" and "far more transmissible, dangerous" etc. in public with a serious face; The genie is already out of the bottle, and people are scared.

[miscmisc]

OK, as I was writing the last post, a number of countries were shutting their doors to the UK already.

It's incredibly ironic and symbolic that this is happening at the last stage of Brexit negotiations.

[miscmisc]

Europeans will have to cooperate to prevent a potential food crisis in the UK, though. I didn't mean to tell them to just shut the door and be damned.

[miscmisc]

For what it's worth, I'm actually still not 100% convinced that the new variant is that much more transmissible than the others, like +0.4 in R. I know, who the hell do I think I am, right, but I'd like to see more proof. It's still weak at this point.

[miscmisc]

It's probably unfair not to mention the fact that the US has done more in terms of the financial rescue package than other developed countries, perhaps with the sole exception of Canada. That shouldn't let the Republicans and their obstructionism off the hook, but it's wrong to claim that the US government has "done nothing."

It's absolutely true that they could've done more, and done it more fairly, as a substantial part of it was a massive corporate bailout that went to wrong people (sounds familiar?). But they didn't "do nothing." 

The true evil will begin when the Republicans go into the uber-hypocritical-disingenuous full austerity "balanced budget" mode from next year on. That's when Americans will be truly fucked.

[miscmisc]

There's quite a parallel between the way the UK had to basically scrap the "Christmas bubble" shit in the very last minute and the way the Japanese government had to "suspend" the Go To Travel campaign without even informing the Japan Tourism Agency beforehand, and both show that we should discard the notion that our governments have even a half-idea of what they are doing.

I know most of you tossed away such an idea months ago already, but just a reminder.

[miscmisc]

This is a very good example of data massaging, a Swedish edition.

The one on the right is the original. The one on the left, the "modified" Swedish version, is completely meaningless as data. "Look! We are only doing as badly as Finland!"

Everyone is liable to do this when facts are inconvenient, you know. Even a good Nordic country does.

But to be frank, this is really childish and pathetic. Worse than the one from Spain on economy that I posted here several months ago.

[miscmisc]

Christian Drosten, a top virologist in Germany, seems to agree with me on the new variant. We should take "70% more contagious" with a grain of salt at this point.