Hua Guofang

@Dirty_habiTI was 48 and three days when my little girl was born. Would I have been ready much before I was around this age? No, I would not and I was living in part of the world that I would not force on a new child. But have I missed out on a lot because of having a kid so late? Yes. My body is starting to crap out, so by the time she's into mountain bike riding, or whatever she does, I won't be able to do it with her, and all of that kind of stuff. It's also a serious likelihood that I'll not meet my grandkids. But, whaddayado? Life is what it is and we all have very different requirements and we just gotta go with what you think is best. You're obviously a thinker and don't seem like the kind of bloke to take responsibility lightly. I'm sure that you'll make the right decision for yourself and your family, whatever that decision ends up being. BTW, great shelving system. I have some similar stuff and it's solid. I wish all of my shelving was like that, instead I wasted money buying cheaper shit and I barely trust it to hold minimal weight.

Got my little girl playing with other kids as our lockdown is easing. She freaked out at first, her little spot on the floor with all her toys and stuff all of a sudden had a bunch of strangers up in it. After she warmed up, one of the other little girls was trying to be nice, passing her a toy and belted her in the face with it. Other than that, it was awesome. She now gets that there are others that she will interact with, not just mum, dad and grandma. Day before we went out on a picnic. As I said, our lives are starting to return to normal now and there's no known cases in our state. However, I know a spot where no one else goes, looking over a lake and across the mountains. I hand-feed birds there and know the place pretty well. So it was a great spot for little pumpkin head to craw around, check out the wildlife and look at nice things. Has me fucked. I was never one for marrying or kids, but I hit my mid 30s and realised that it was either get with the program or be the dude who's rarely invited to things and spend the holidays by himself because everyone else has family. That was a recipe for an early death via liver cancer. Now, I can't believe how much I love this shit, even committing all the time that usually would have been my own, to the family gives a strong sense of self worth. I do worry that I've brought a child into a fucked up world, but my goal is to make the world a better place than I found it. And if I replace myself with some one that is positive, capable and virtuous then I've achieved my aim. Having a family really is fulfilling.

So this is the exact stuff that I talk about when I say that the US fed govt has screwed up its response and caused far more death, suffering and shut down in the US than needed to happen. Yes, it's his son, but you can bet your bitch tits that this is a major pillar of the campaign strategy. It's encouraging Trump's base and the Reps to believe that the virus is all a Democrat beat up. They're circling back to the narrative that they had right at the start of the outbreak, because they think they have the virus beat and that there won't be a big spike between now and Nov.

Dude wrote a whole book on this shit: Recently did a podcast with a former colleague of mine where he discusses the CovidCrisis, armed cosplayers in state capitals, etc.: https://aca.st/9e2bf5 I've read most of the book. The dude writes really well but it's a frustrating book to read when you realise how accurate his observations are. .

Isn't that what they want people to do, though? They want people to spend in order to keep the economy pumping - as opposed to people saving it or using it to pay off debt. Of course, I'm sure they'd prefer healthier habits, but you know what I mean.

YEah, for sure and I think we will see stuff like this come out in the wash (however, don't discount the probability that there are differing rates of death because there are differing modes of response, in terms of timing, severity, culture, etc. It's not just going to be all about the lethality of the virus). But I haven't seen a lot of talk or evidence about bumping numbers for funding and I don't see the media making the numbers up based on their own investigations, they're usually citing govts and expert bodies. The flipside is that there is strong data out there indicating that the rate is actually much higher, I've cited it a couple of times now. But this goes back to the point that we just don't know, it's too early to draw hard conclusions, which is why making comparisons to stuff that we do know intimately, like car accidents, doesn't work. We don't actually know what we're comparing yet - do we get immunity when we recover, are there any flow on health effects like there was with SARS, will it mutate more or less deadly, what will the second wave look like, etc. etc. When you don't know what you're dealing with and there is potential for serious shit, a la the Spanish flu, it's usually wiser to take a more risk averse approach. Of course, going overboard is hazardous too and really, the discussion in this thread is more about where is the right middle ground. Not an easy question to answer with so many unknowns.

So, @Merceryou want us to compare CV19 to motor vehicular accidents? Ok, in the last couple of years there's been 40k and below deaths per year in the US, due to vehicle accidents. Driving is heavily regulated and only those who have passed a test showing that they can use a car on public roads are allowed to drive a car and any infraction of the rules is heavily punished. So, in 3 months, under tight regulations, over 80k have died due to CV19. Annually, that would be 320k dead - 8 times more than the amount of people that die on the road. So, setting aside how wildly uneven the amount of people dying on the roads is to CV19, maybe we should treat them the same way! Under your comparison, the outcome would be that whilst this virus is out of control, only those who pass the test (that means testing negative after being quarantined for 14 days) are allowed out of the house in a highly regulated fashion (masks, goggles, hazmat body condom, etc.) and that if they make mistakes they can be fined or imprisoned. That means we would be treating the virus with the same precautions as driving, just like you're suggesting we do. Honest questions, did you check the numbers for road deaths before you asked that question?

To chime in: 1 - It can be both. 2 - I actually agree, and this is why, when there is no doubt that America has done many shitty things around the world and Donald Trump could only ever come to power BECAUSE they system is broken, I still think it's the best bet we have. It's done more good in the world than any other country. It's also why I pay such close attention to what happens over there (not only because America is Austrlaia's #1 ally) but I'd rather the world be lead by the US than any of the other plausible realities.

Your first point is wrong because it assumes that we know how many deaths CV19 will cause and we don't - and we certainly didn't when the lockdown was called. You're comparing a known quantity with an unknown quantity. That's completely illegitimate. I really don't get your logic on the second point. My argument is that your comparison is simplistic - you are saying that lockdown shouldn't happen because we don't go on lockdown for other things that kill lots of people. But lockdown isn't "nobody do anything", it's a tight control of behaviour until we can reduce the risk. Your comparison treats it as an all o nothing, but it's no the reality of the lockdown and it's not the reality of driving. Lockdown isn't complete and driving also has heavy measures to reduce the risk. Plus, lockdown is temporary until we can figure out how bad the threat is and work out ways to mitigate the risk. We already know how bad the threat is for driving and we've mitigated the risk to an acceptable level. Your next point is pretty fair. I'm not 100% across all the different levels of lockdown you have and at this point in the game, I'd hope that the areas that are very lightly impacted would phase in opening up and those that are heavily impacted retain heavy controls. On your next point, sorry, but I'm going with the people who have the training/knowledge/experience on this thing and they are all saying, pretty much to a person, that the facts aren't in on shit yet. And to be honest, your logic of saying "We don't know how much farts kill you" is silly. We know that this virus does kill you and that similar viruses have in the past killed people. We also know that it's highly transmissible. I think that's enough for any reasonable person to say that there is a known risk. As to your next point, you can keep it because you're verbalising and being childish. If you want to have an adult discussion, about the impact ont he economy and flow on effects to society, let's. If you want to dribble shit and make up your own answers based on your imagined image of me, you're wasting your own time. regards your final comment, for sure. But it's not the responsible people that you make the heavy rules for, it's the idiots that don't take the responsible approach. I know that comment is problmeatic and we probably agree more than this discussion suggests, as I said up the page, phasing and geographic modulation of the restructions makes a lot of sense. But I'm really starting to get hammered here and this took way too long to type. PS - not valid.

That was in a WaPo article. I never read it but I saw cats discussing it.

He can't help you now.....

That is a false equivalence though. There is a huge effort to reduce car accidents, there are tight restrictions around driving and heavy penalties for getting it wrong. Secondly, vehicles are a known quantity, CV19 is not. Maybe when the info is more complete, the comparison will be valid. But when you don't know what this virus will do, you can't accurately compare it to anything.

Hahahah, Mr Semantics over here! Say anything you want and then claim semantics when some one pulls you up on your bullshit! Then make out you admitted that you're wrong and claim semantics when it's pointed out that you haven't. This is a fucking great hustle you got goin here man. Respect! Ah fuck it man, I'm just havin some laughs over a beer and just gettin you riled. I really don't care.

This has me laughing like fuck. You're doing your best to avoid the actual argument because you just can't admit that you misspoke. So I'll leave it there because it's getting silly. Yes, those cops are fucking idiots and even if they didn't mace her and beat the shit out of her, they still deserve to be fucked over, even if it's for pointing a loaded weapon at a person in a fucking sci-fi movie getup out the front of a comic shop, let alone physically assaulting her. We have no disagreement there.

Hahaha, yes! Make out like I was defending the cops and not pointing out that you made shit up!! (let's not forget about the mace, now!) C'man, man, it's ok to admit that you over-spoke. The cops are obviously idiots and what they did to that poor girl should be enough to have them charged with a criminal offence. No one is arguing that. But seriously, no one would ever say that a single hit is beating the shit out of anyone, even if it is a colloquialism - it's like some one saying "oops" and you claiming that they "freaked the fuck out, maaaaan!". You just over-egged a pudding because what you saw made you pissed, as it should have. Have a laugh about it and move on.

Oh get your hand off it, ya fucking drama queen! I mean, just look at the sentence you wrote, it doesn't even make sense, mate: Cops beat people to death, which means a singe hit to the face equates to having the shit beat out of you. Did you even think that jumble of shit through before you wrote it? And somehow me pointing out that she didn't get maced, like you said, and that a single hit doesn't equal "get the shit beat out of" means that I like my family getting bashed. Fucking lol, and you put shit on the MSM for being full of it! Yeah, of course those pigs are fucking morons and of course they don't belong in the job, and whoever called the cops deserves to be committed as they're obviously too stupid to be in public, all 100% correct, IMO. But none of that dismisses the fact that your post was inaccurate and more over-dramatic than a 5 year old girl who dropped her slice of birthday cake. Does it? Call a fucking spade a spade, mate! Then you won't get called out for saying shit that isn't true.

So I know that there is a bunch of folk on here that disagree with the system of governance, believe that the US has totally lost its way, tyranny, liberty stolen, etc. etc. I understand your position, and that this situation is just par for the course for you. In that case, this post is for people who aren't convinced by that and still see some value, at least in the current system: You cats have got some serious shit going down over there. The current leadership has been sacking all the folk that are supposed to give impartial information to the leadership so they can make informed decisions. They are replacing them with their supporters, people who are highly politicised and that have no experience in national security. Even worse, they are sacking the IGs and people in oversight roles and replacing them with cronies. There is apparently an investigation into Pompeo and the State IG was just sacked. Nixon did some wild shit in his final days, but I don't recall any American government that has done stuff like this. It's the kind of thing you see in places like Venezuela and Russia. This actually is a deep state being set up, right in front of you.

Won't sleep for a week after watching that.

Anything is possible for an idiot.

Just basic MTB trails, some pretty fast and flowy, some quite techy with steep climbs. My bike is light but robust so I can do a lot of different riding on it, including tame downhill.

G'day.

They whacked her into the ground face first (for what was obviously the dumbest reason ever) but I think "beating the shit out of her and macing her" is being a little over-dramatic: https://globalnews.ca/video/6908239/woman-in-star-wars-stormtrooper-costume-arrested-by-lethbridge-police-on-may-4th Cops are also now under investigation (for whatever that's worth in Canada. In MElbourne Australia, that would mean that they're up for promotion)

I have 3 bikes, only one on the road. The other two are passed their use by dates but I can't bear to part them out as they both have deep sentimental value for me and have ridden in countries and places that I can barely explain (take, for instance, through a 'prison-like suburb on an Estonian island', 'on 'networking' trips in scary countries', etc. etc.). They now hang on my garage wall as art. Going to hit the trails today - no CV19 cases in my state and the hospitals can afford to deal with my broken body parts when I fuck up into the dirt!!!