Random Rant Thread

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A dupe, mark, sap, etc.

This moron believed Paul Ryan was a serious politician, so it's totally par for the course.

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Seriously, these morons have lived in D.C. for years, and still don't know why there are so many goddamn lawyers in America?

Half of public statements in America are lawyers talking, for God's sakes.

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7-day average Covid deaths # in Germany is 886 now, which is equivalent to 3,500 deaths per day in the US.

It's 131 in Sweden now (with the caveat I explained before, probably actually higher), which would be 4,300 in the US.

It's 1,060 in the UK now, which would be 5,200 in the US.

And it's currently 3,300 in the US.

Not to compare those countries to the US (which would be pretty meaningless), but this is bad.

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Those charlatans funded by libertarian money shovelers made such a big show of kooky pseudo-science with that Great Uncle Barmitzvah Declaration or whatever the fuck they called it, and many studies since then all but proved the laziness of those people, and the utter impracticality and plain impossibility of that "strategy." Quelle surprise.

But I don't think that truth has been conveyed to the general public, including political and even bureaucratic leaders, to a sufficient degree at all. Many still seem to believe that herd immunity is possible without (periodical) vaccination.

Some real scientists should do another Declaration event for the media to make a big show about how laughably stupid those kooks were. We've already got all the evidence that the idea of natural herd immunity against SARS-CoV-2 itself is a pure fantasy, let alone the mother of all easier-said-than-done that is "protecting the most vulnerable in the society while letting everyone else go on with their normal life."

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I remember a Brazilian physicist telling me a while ago that his country was probably becoming a cesspool of SARS-CoV-2 mutations and that we'll have to deal with it some time in the near future.

And here we are.

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In that document, this sentence - and one particular word - stands out:

Chansley was one of the insurrectionists who entered the Capitol building.

Being an "insurrectionist" is a serious, serious charge.

Unfortunately many of those people at the Capitol will be locked in prison for many, many, many years.

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Another one-term president of the United States, but one hell of a man.

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We let these sociopaths be near the actual power.

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On the scale of my personal expectations of the Biden administration, which is pretty miserable in some areas such as foreign policy but positive in others, this $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus package gets a solid "B+".

EDIT: It was initially an "A" for some reason, lol. Freudian slip perhaps, though I have no fucking idea what kind of Freudian shit that could be.

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Nordic countries' traditional flirtation with eugenics is well-known among scholars, but do they still have a hard time suppressing that impulse in 2021? This is not exactly eugenics, but the same energy.

From Sweden:

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I guess if you were a college libertarian dweeb or something you'd find this kind of shit "rational!", but no. This is a fundamentally stupid question given the actual context.

We don't live in some Mad Max world of the choice of killing your wife or getting this bottle of water.

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Speaking of Sweden, even people outside Scandinavia should be periodically reminded of this gem:

”På hösten kommer en ny smittvåg. Sverige kommer att ha en hög immunitetsnivå och antalet smittade kommer antagligen att vara ganska lågt. Men Finland kommer att ha en väldigt låg immunitetsnivå. ” - Anders Tegnell

"In the fall, a new wave of infections will come. Sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of infected people will be very low. But Finland will have a very low level of immunity. ” - Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist

At least Britons have a reason to care (i.e. be angry):

Boris Johnson took advice from Sweden's no-lockdown scientist before rejecting tougher coronavirus restrictions
www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-briefed-sweden-scientist-anders-tegnell-coronavirus-rules-2020-9?r=US&IR=T

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I sometimes wonder how many Americans are aware that many of the "Trumptards" that they are arguing with on Twitter and elsewhere are actually Serbs, Hungarians, Croats, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians etc. Twitter's limitation makes it hard for you to tell.

No, they are not "bots." They are just right-wing Eastern Europeans.

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So can you really blame me for dunking on Alabamians?

Who the fuck else elects such a retarded (and dangerous) braindead not for the representative of some batshit crazy district, but for the *fucking Senate*?



"after we got this virus behind us a little bit"

Holy crap, lol.

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I was wrong on Brexit. First, a Twitter thread:

I was aware of the quiet moves made by some of those Japanese firms' distribution hubs from the UK to the Continent, but didn't quite capture the magnitude of it.

This had been happening since 2016, and neither I nor most Britons understood the true meaning of it. Look at the list of the companies and think of how much they are worth in total, and we are only talking about Japanese companies.

Those companies, mostly manufacturers, were expecting the worst case scenario of Brexit. And we are learning every day that what has actually happened is... not that far from that scenario.

There's been so many "events" lately that the reports on Brexit have been pushed aside a bit even on the British media outlets. But we are slowly learning the true consequences of Brexit. There's total chaos particularly in the manufacturing and export sector in Britain, because of the ridiculous regulation mismatches and so on that would basically paralyze their business while their EU counterparts are gaining strength as they quickly replace the British business in Europe.

So, those Japanese firms totally, totally made the right call. They would be in the midst of utter chaos now otherwise.

And the City. The City! Even the City has been hit hard. Look at the trade volume before and after the NYE. Where do you think such a huge amount of capital went?

And even in fishing! I made fun of the "Flemish fishermen," pointing out that was one field where the UK ought to have some advantage, but man. It turns out that the EU scored points even there. 

I did say Brexit was a "W" for the EU, but underestimated Brussels; I didn't know the true extent of the "win." This is lopsided. I was wrong because I underestimated how big a win it was.

What can I say. Congrats to the EU citizens, again. Your polity really made a breakfast out of a powerful, powerful country called the United Kingdom.