Maoraigh wrote:
An interruption of the food supply chain at that level will have serious consequences later.
Here (SoCal) the CEOs of a couple of the big supermarket chains have gone on TV to calm people’s nerves about the supply chain. Fresh food certainly is plentiful in the stores, it’s more the non-perishables like pasta, rice and canned stuff that was scarce. Even that is getting back to normal, my guess is the hoarders have hoarded and we’re seeing a sort of return to normality. The bigger threat to the supply chain – at least here – seems to be the shortage of workers. All the big supermarket chains are advertising for extra people. While these are mostly low-paying jobs, they hopefully will tide over those who have lost their jobs, many of them low-skilled in the hospitality industry. That said, I think the economic consequences of COVID will be severe.
I posted some while back about the use of Chloroquine and I see that Trump has just announced it appears to be very effective and its use is being rushed through approval – of course it has been approved for malaria for at least 50 years.
Given this was knowledge circulating over six weeks ago (when almost all on line supplies had already been sold out) are we behind the curve in considering its use? Is it snakeoil?
Off_Field wrote:
I think the unique part of the states is the importance of freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. It makes it more difficult for a government to ride roughshod over them.
Really?
Ok, so, freedom of speech. In the US there are certain things you just don’t touch. Like you absolutely can’t insult the office of the President of the United States. Same with the flag. You also can’t really satire kids taking guns to school. In the UK nothing is off limits for piss-taking, nothing at all – you can say that the Queen blows goats. You can burn the flag. No-one gives a shit.
The right to bear arms? This might have been relevant in the 18th century with muzzle-loaders where military power was basically a function of how many men you had. But now? The ‘well-regulated militia’ will get a rude awakening if they try to overthrow their government, as they seem to think might one day be their constitutional duty. The US government controls the most powerful military in the world and will crush a rebellious US citizenry, should the need arise, as though it wasn’t there. You have your assault rifles, they’ve got their tanks and helicopters.
You’re no more free than anyone else. I like the idea though, and I like the FAA philosophy compared to the CAA.
393 million weapons in civilian hands is a pretty good supply for a guerrilla force (I wonder how many the Vietnamese had?), asymmetric warfare is surely a ‘thing’, and there are quite a few trained snipers in the US. Fear of the possibilities is absolutely a way to make good people do the right thing. That plus a lot of other more obvious and more civil factors that one would hope make fear only a small, although ever present, part of the daily calculus.
I don’t see any evidence of Chloroquine being “rushed through approval” (i.e. for Coronavirus treatment) but I’m sure its as interesting to President Trump as anything else that might help treat the virus. I’m sure lots of people are working on as many drugs and technologies as they can come up with.
Enjoy your flying 
Slavery, McCarthyism, internment of Americans of Japanese origin and more have amply demonstrated that a constitution is worthless if the general population ignores it. It may protect the people from the government, but not the people from the people, and not a minority from anyone.
Graham wrote:
Like you absolutely can’t insult the office of the President of the United States. Same with the flag.
Really? Look up antifa antics, you can and they do burn USA flags, It’s not something I’m keen on with but they are able to, I’m pretty sure there have been cases defending peoples rights to do so too. If you see the stream of orange man bad I’m not convinced about your other point either.
If you think nothing in the UK is off limits for piss taking you’re sadly mistaken
See Harry Miller link
Do you an humourous cartoons about allah in the same way you do about Jesus?
The guy who faced prison for the joke of teaching a pug to do a well known salute link – Whether you think the joke is in good taste or not it was clearly a piss take.
Graham Linehand received a verbal harrassment warning for deadnaming a transgender person
In the right to bear arms argument it’s just absurd to try to portray that difference. Having lots of tanks and helicopters does not mean you can easily control a citizenry that does not want to give in, See US involvement in Afghanistan, war in Vietnam, etc. You’re also assuming all members of the Military would be happy with total authoritaran take over and would not refuse to just mass murder their fellow citizens. Historically in the states gun control was used to target minorities to keep them defenseless. link . I don’t think for a second that the US government could easily crush a total rebellious citizenry, unless they want to nuke everything, but that’s rather pointless. During the early part of the Second war when German invasion was a possibility it was thought that rural defense would cause a significant issue to the German’s invasion.
It’s far easier for China with no personal freedom and tremendous tracking / social credit system to keep their populous under control, round up the uigyurs and do large scale organ harvesting without issue.
Getting back onto thread topic, with a number of US states saying they’ll be scaling back policing and not responding to burglaries or auto thefts people may need to defend themselves. I find it funny that all of a sudden anti gun Californians in LA are queuing out the doors to buy something to protect themselves and their families.
denopa wrote:
I can’t see the medical reason for closing beaches and country paths.
There is none. But the French, typically, heard Macron say “work from home if you can” but understood “you’re all on holiday starting now”. Hence some desperate back-pedalling today (via regional prefects etc.) to specify that yes, people who cannot work remotely (e.g. construction jobs) should go to work. That in turn is being seen as a class warfare issue: “white collar workers are Skyping from their vacation homes while drinking Nespressos, and blue collars are supposed to be outside and deliver their groceries”.
There have been social media rumblings of Parisiens displacing to holiday homes over last weekend. With a choice of Paris vs Holiday retreat, Id have done the same, I just happen to permanently live in a holiday area..
There was news footage of a couple walking on a deserted beach yesterday; They were then approached from about 7-800m away by a Gendarme/Policeman and filmed being asked to leave and told the beach was closed. It was so obviously typical french propaganda footage to tell the public “this is not a holiday”, but to me was just a little too much “police state” and I wasnt impressed. As of right now the french are pretty much doing “the right thing” and for many it is possibly being seen as 2 weeks of unexpected time off, however I suspect that if the “2 weeks” Macron spoke about at the weekend gets extended more than 3 or 4 weeks then there will certainly be push-back from the public.
Regards, SD..
Obviously I know nothing about medical stuff but I recall it coming up when I was going to the Dominican Republic many years ago. Chloroquine had common and nasty side effects, with Malarone being a bit better and I took that. In the end the biggest risk down there was sh*t floating in the sea; you could smell it sitting in the beach bar… all the scuba divers had ear infections, etc.
We live in the countryside and there is absolutely no chance of that getting locked down. I can walk all day without getting anywhere near another person, and most of the time I don’t even see one. And, currently, every day I collect a pile of wild garlic which will ensure nobody else will go near you anyway 
Even the beautiful Greek islands are suffering although reportedly Brits are flouting the restrictions by flying freely to Corfu and walking about and prob99 spreading the stuff.
Woke up this morning and found myself utterly fed up with this Corona situation. Reading the news right now. 102 persons are hospitalised due to Corona. This sounds bad, but in the same article I can read that 119 persons are hospitalised due to influenza. About 1000 persons die each year from influenza in Norway. Who are these persons? It turns out they are all old and sick and would die from something within weeks/months anyway.
It is a strange world.
