Hua Guofang

lol, the ending.

I think one of the best take aways from this is that reading some books doesn't mean you're educated on something - having knowledge isn't having an education. Education is being forced to read and consider view points other than those you agree with, being challenged on your position in a structured and systematic way, changing your position when you can't adequately respond to a challenge and keeping an open mind when alternative explanations exist, among other things, for years on end. I agree with Tom's position that the internet age has encouraged people to think that they can do a bit of googling on something, read some blogs an opinions and bingo, now you can say that you've "researched something and can speak authoritatively. Too much talking, not enough asking questions (being afraid of being questioned, getting defensive when unable to answer a question) and not enough of considering other viewpoints and credible positions. It's all about convincing others and stoking egos these days, not actual dialogue.

What do you think I am, a Furby? I have a full-sized life-like Trump doll, hand made in Japan. I pat it, I feed it burgers and I call it Donny.

Debating.

Yeah, he goes into that in the book as well, that our culture expects that because we want answers we should get them. And the less people know about stuff the more they think that the answers are simple and the experts are just too stupid to see them.

Jesus on a titty twister fuck. Just read that official death toll for UK is 44k. But the amount of deaths over the 5 year average is 55k. Apparently that report should be in the BBC soon. Hoping that's a mistake. If not and those deaths are CV19 related, that will rocket UK into the highest deaths per million by a long shot. Unless all heavily impacted areas have just as many unexplained deaths. In saying that, though, I wonder how much depression/suicide due to loneliness, financial stress, neglect, etc. account for that rise. The relationship to CV19 might be incidental rather than health related for a lot of them.

Quietly pleased to note that there's no Jewish stereotypes reaching for the money, as there often are in this era of art!

I found the culprits that were stealing my strawberries on the weekend! the bloody Currawongs!

And in 15, anti-vaxxer Karens (or in Australia's case, Sharons)

I wish when they say MILF in porn they actually had yummy mummies.

Yeah man, I used to see the homeless people thin out every year in Beijing after the particularly cold nights. Felt like shit going in doors where it was warm, knowing that just outside there would have been people doing it tough. I used to feed them, maybe more to placate my conscience than make any real difference. There's always the cats that fall asleep drunk, run out of petrol or think they can walk it and get lost. Don't even have to be homeless, just a bad decision or bad luck can/will do it.

That's an Eastern Brown he's kicking, usually listed in the top five deadliest and most venomous snakes. 80% of people bitten die. I see them pretty commonly around here. Fortunately, they do their best to avoid people. It's when they live in an environment with a lot of people around that they will allow you to walk closer to them and accidentally tread on them or scare them. I had one cross in front of us over the footpath as I was pushing the pram in Feb this year. If he'd stayed still in the leaf litter beside the path, I'd never have spotted him.

@misteravenI always love the stereotypical Americans and Canadians how they think Australia so dangerous because of the lethal snakes, spiders, sharks, crocs, etc. For me, that^^^ shit is far more dangerous. I can step on a spider, kick a snake and avoid the sharks/crocs, etc. But you end up outside and out of luck for an hour in that kind of weather and you're dead. You can kill a spider but you can't kill the cold.

Depends where you are in the country, which is a whole continent. I live 2 hours from the ski fields and it gets fuck off cold here in winter. The coldest I've experienced here was -7c/19.4f, which I know is rather balmy compared to the cold you get in Canada and the northern part of the US. The coldest I've ever experienced was around -20c/-4f in China and the wind was brutal. Summers here in Canberra can hang around the mid forties/113 but have gotten up to about 51/124. I think Canberra is both the hottest and coldest capital city in Australia, Darwin might get hotter. That's up north and it's hot all fucking year. The only difference is that sometimes it rains for 3 months. That's the weather, now let's hear from Joe about what's been going on in sports today....

Cool, will do.

That would be it. But usually the 20 somethings that are still into being glamours and talking about themselves. The ones in our mothers classes (fuck you, I went to mothers' classes) were fucking airheads and nobody wanted to listen to them.

Have you got links on that whistleblower testimony? I went down the rabbit hole on that two years back and at that time it was a guy, some one with credibility saying that they were about to release research showing how google was doing it but that paper never ended up being published. People talked about it as if it was fact but there was never any evidence produced. Never heard about congressional testimony on that and I’d like to read it.

Sorry to harp on, but this is some amazing shit to watch from a distance. If y'all want to see what tyranny looks like as it comes out into the open, this is it (he's also started calling what gets published by media outlets he doesn't like, "illegal"): "Send names and events" This is moving towards McCarthy-esque type behaviour. It starts off as hyperbole and shit posting (yes, the Pres. of USA is a shit poster, think on that) but if he is not opposed and his supporters buy into it and give it momentum, it becomes policy. He is saying that anything that is critical of him is illegal. That should seriously worry you. .

For the Aussies:

Flaming Jenga.

co-sign on the saving money trip. I deliberately stayed away from online purchases other than books so when we come out the other side of this, we'll have some resources to enjoy - turn a negative into a positive type thing. @Schnitzelobviously, I'm much older than new dads but my wife is also considerably younger than me (*nods smugly), but she's still older than the yummy mummy crowd. Fortunately, the mother's group here had a relatively higher average age and it was the younger, more superficial mums who didn't stick around. Pity for your missus though, as that group really has been a great resource. I was able to watch all my friends that now have kids at 21 and to learn from their experiences. I'm really glad that I didnt' have kids sooner, I would have just fucked it up.

Here's hoping that you're right. I really don't know anything about the figures in that graph so it's a bit more meme like in its value than a useful injection into the conversation, to be honest. That's the fear. Govt is setting up the testing facilities and surveillance capabilities around Australia and CBR is still putting together the new temporary portable emergency wing at the hospital and the PPE sourcing is still moving forward at full pace. I believe the reasons are two-fold: firstly, as we phase down the restrictions on movement and gatherings, they have to be able to identify an outbreak at the earliest opportunity to contain it, and secondly, as you say, we're heading into winter, and that gets to the question below by Kults That's the early thinking but, from what I'm aware, much more experimentation needs to be done before they reach a conclusion that can't be disproved. Then, you also face the problem that in hot areas, you still have lots of cooled and air-conditioned spaces where the heat won't reduce the ability of the virus to survive outside of the host. Secondly, the heat won't stop the virus from traveling between hosts who are in close proximity as transmission won't rely on the virus passing from external surfaces, it will be able to pass directly due to interpersonal contact. India is seeing a pretty quick increase in cases at the moment and Singapore saw it hook into its migrant worker population that all live in shitty, high-density workers' quarters and they're both high-temp, high-humidity environments. I guess the assumption is that it will be similar to the flu virus in that it will transmit less in the warmer seasons but just as with the flu, you can still catch it at the height of summer if the conditions are right.

Of course, history does not dictate the future, however it hopefully informs it: