[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I figure I might as well post some things about him that show he actually knows what he is talking about, before the tweets (and Byteme/Skunk??) start.

Forget tweets or posts, guy's already been literally in the crosshairs for a while. That's what you get in the U.S. of A these days when you put science, empirical facts, rational logic over shitty conspiracy theories, imaginary friends and blatant stupidity.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Dr Bright will apparently sing on the hill next week!! But won't the WH block him, just like they did with everyone else?

He'll testify before the Senate, not the House. You know, the camera of Congress which allowed Lindsey Graham to tell a hysterical Brett Kavanaugh, "You have nothing to apologize for, my friend..."

[Skuj]

Oh. Right.

The actual details in Bright's complaint are very interesting!!

And....there may actually be a god.....Graham's embrace of Trump is beginning to cost him politically?

(Fuck, which thread am I in. Sorry.)

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Yeah, I tried to find some kind of GOP connection in his past, but it seems like maybe he thought he could be of help? Like all those other people that Anonymous talks about in his book?

I found this: http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/...ick-BRIGHT.stm

I figure I might as well post some things about him that show he actually knows what he is talking about, before the tweets (and Byteme/Skunk??) start.

And so it begins!! https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...ms-disgruntled

[Bytor Peltor]

What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State?

[_tunic_]

This had me laughing out loud. Kids in the US will not be killed by Corona, but by driving in a car!

 

No driving test, but a driving license for 20,000 American youth

There are no driving tests in Georgia today because of the corona virus. But the backlogs have grown so much that the authorities have issued the driving licenses. Almost 20,000 young people now have a driving license, but have not taken an exam.

"I was so nervous about the exam. With the parking and all that," said 17-year-old Willa to CNN. "So I was very happy that I didn't have to do it."

Willa from Tucker, Georgia, could simply apply for her driver's license online. She does not have to take an exam now, just like thousands of other young people.

Exam by parents
In the state of Wisconsin, 16- and 17-year-olds will receive their driving license next week, without an exam. This concerns about 10,000 young people.

The parents of 17-year-old Stephanie from Cedarburg, Wisconsin, eventually do some kind of driving test themselves.

"My wife and I told each other that we are going to practice with her to see if she's ready," said Tom, Stephanie's father.

"We are the ones who have to give permission for her driver's license. We want to be sure as responsible parents."

A few rules
The states of Georgia and Wisconsin don't just hand out the driving licenses. There are a few rules. Young people in Georgia must have previously driven with a driving instructor for 40 hours.

They must also have a exercise driving license for at least a year without violations. You can apply for this in Georgia when you are 15 years old. You can then drive under the supervision of someone aged 21 or older who does have a driving license.

In Wisconsin, youth should have such an exercise certificate for at least six months. In addition, they must have practiced with their parents for 30 hours.

"Dangerous idea"
"We cannot assume that everyone has responsible parents," said driving instructor Sarah Casto of Georgia. "That is a dangerous idea."

She has started an online petition to stop the exam-less driving licenses.

Gas and brake
Some parents feel the same way. Mother Laurie from Georgia says, "It is dangerous that no one checks whether the person knows what the accelerator is and what the brake pedal is."

Too bad for Laurie. Her son is already 18 and he does not need his parents' permission to apply for a driver's license.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by _tunic_

This had me laughing out loud. Kids in the US will not be killed by Corona, but by driving in a car!

Can that country get any stupider? I don't give a flying fuck if there's a backlog - does anybody need more cars in the street right now? LET THEM FUCKING WAIT. FUCK!

[h8kurdt]

 

Lockdown protester doing his best to look like a total moron. Actually no idea what runs through the minds of these people.

[h8kurdt]

https://mobile.twitter.com/vizjourno...89791150800899

Look at the brains on Bret here. You make it too easy, Robert, old boy.

[_tunic_]

Someone "improved" those pictures

 

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

 

Lockdown protester doing his best to look like a total moron. Actually no idea what runs through the minds of these people.

This is what makes the United States the laughing stock of the world today. Do people still wanna go there? Sure - if the alternative is getting tortured and killed it is (as long as you're willing to leave your kids inside a cage).

[Diesel]

As a kid I always wanted to visit America, but over the years my opinion changed after seeing countless videos and reports documenting the outlandish and downright scary stupidity. I'll never set foot there.

[Skuj]

I vowed never to go there as long as Trump is POTUS, and I have kept that vow so far. (I went there about 30x in my life.)

America, you are lost. You are NOT "great again". The world no longer looks to America for leadership.

[choc e-Claire]

My state has changed the rules for now, meaning that you're allowed to have up to five guests at once (which means that my whole household of six can't visit relatives, but whatever...).

I've been going fine with lockdown, but I'm honestly really excited about the prospect of getting proper social connections this time.

[The Soup Nazi]

Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure
An American scientist who collaborates with the Wuhan Institute of Virology had his grant terminated in the wake of unsubstantiated claims that COVID-19 is either manmade or leaked out of a Chinese government lab.

[choc e-Claire]

I'm returning to school May 26th. Many of my friends are unhappy...

[GeneticKiss]

Originally Posted by Diesel

As a kid I always wanted to visit America, but over the years my opinion changed after seeing countless videos and reports documenting the outlandish and downright scary stupidity. I'll never set foot there.

C'mon man, these people are in no way a majority. In fact, a lot of us agree with how dumb they are.

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by GeneticKiss

C'mon man, these people are in no way a majority. In fact, a lot of us agree with how dumb they are.

What could be a fun game is getting them to consider each other the dumber of the bunch

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by GeneticKiss

In fact, a lot of us agree with how dumb they are.

Not enough not to have a reality TV dotard as president, and not nearly enough to truly mobilize against a completely fucked system (second amendment and school shootings, electoral college, horrifying public healthcare, etc.).

[The Soup Nazi]

A Post-Post-Modern Slump
by Paul Krugman
The New York Times, May 13, 2020

Last week’s jobs report was ghastly, and as I pointed out in today’s column, the reality is almost certainly worse: the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that difficulties in classifying workers idled by the coronavirus probably mean that the true unemployment rate is closer to 20 percent than 15. That’s worse than most of the Great Depression.

The good news, such as it is, is that we’ve probably already taken most of the economic hit from Covid-19. The lockdown of high-viral-risk activities has been fairly comprehensive, and a variety of indicators suggest that the economy more or less stabilized around the middle of last month.

So the question now is: How fast a recovery can we expect?

Economists — like epidemiologists, by the way — rely a lot on history to answer such questions. The problem now is that history gives us an ambiguous answer. It’s not that every economic recovery is different; there are, in fact, clear patterns. But there seems to have been two kinds of recovery, and it’s not immediately clear which — if either — pattern is likely to apply this time.

The figure below shows employment growth in the last six recoveries, with the final month of the recession set equal to 100, and each line labeled by the year in which recovery began.

 

What you see is that before 1990 we tended to have “morning in America” recoveries, in which jobs came roaring back. Since then, however, we’ve had extended “jobless recoveries,” in which G.D.P. is growing but it takes a long time for the jobs to come back.

Why did the recovery story change? Early in the Great Recession, I argued in a blog post titled “Postmodern recessions,” that fast recoveries followed recessions caused by high interest rates, imposed by the Federal Reserve to curb inflation; once the Fed relented, the economy easily sprang back. Later recessions had been caused, instead, by private-sector overreach: the commercial real estate bubble of the 1980s, the tech bubble of the 1990s. These were much harder to cure.

And I predicted, correctly, that the Great Recession, brought on by the collapse of a giant housing bubble, would be followed by another jobless recovery.

So where does the current slump fit? My reluctant conclusion is that it’s more like the pre-1990 slumps than the more modern episodes.

Why reluctant? Well, I was right about the housing bubble, the Great Recession, and a lot of other stuff around then, and it’s always tempting to revisit your greatest hits. And let’s be frank: Given my politics, I don’t like the idea of Donald Trump riding into November on the wave of a rapidly healing economy, and would like to believe that can’t happen.

But Covid-19 is, in some ways, like the spike in interest rates that generated the 1981-82 recession. It’s something imposed on the economy from outside, as it were, rather than the result of private-sector excess, so you’d expect fast recovery once the outside shock recedes.

A fast recovery, however, depends on having the pandemic recede. And that’s why the push from the Trump administration and its allies for a quick reopening of the economy is probably self-destructive. Epidemiologists, who are far more likely to get this right than the rest of us, say that we’re nowhere close to having the virus sufficiently contained to reopen; they’re extremely worried that we may have a second wave.

So if we were patient and self-disciplined, we probably could eventually see rapid recovery. But “self-discipline” isn’t a term many people would apply to Donald Trump.

Quick Hits

Recoveries from financial crises tend to be slow.

Indications of economic stabilization.

More indications, but with a horrifying portrait of who has been hurt.

Covid-19 is spiking in the heartland.

Facing the Music

 

Like everyone, I’m mostly living in old jeans and frayed T-shirts these days. But this ZZ-top cover, by a couple of talented sisters from Atlanta, reminds us about dressing sharp.