Thursday morning links

Hawaii, the one place in the United States that is actively creating new land, wants to sue the oil companies for erosion? I wonder when people are going to start questioning the candidates they elect when they start behaving like lunatics.

#1 Aggie on 2020-03-12 10:26 (Reply)

Social isolation is a dream come true. I answer and care about exactly 19 people - spouse, children and grandkids. Most everyone else can pound sand.

#2 CJ Phaedrus on 2020-03-12 10:56 (Reply)

As an introvert, I have been preparing for this my entire life! LOL

#2.1 mary on 2020-03-12 11:52 (Reply)

Watching the progress on the border wall was frustrating. It felt like the left and the illegals were winning with the delays and court challenges. And then there was the piece meal way that they did it. But all in all their efforts were well directed. They built the wall in some of the areas most difficult to protect without a wall and now we are seeing the result of that. I will be happy to see all of the wall built and see people enter this country legally through the front door and not sneak in.

#3 OneGuy on 2020-03-12 11:02 (Reply)

Italy is full of old people. Yes as a percentage, but the U.S. has far more old people and they are at risk too. What a disaster it would be to lose a large number of grandparents and older parents. I realize the younger generation doesn't always appreciate the older generation but the loss would be terrible. Think of that ad where grandparents are told to update their vaccinations so they don't put their grandchildren at risk. Now the shoe is on the other foot and it will be the children and grandchildren putting grandparents at risk.

This has probably always been true, that is older people catching diseases from children and then passing away. Maybe it is time we take another look at this phenomenon and set guidelines even after covid-19.

#4 OneGuy on 2020-03-12 11:12 (Reply)

QUOTE:

... Think of that ad where grandparents are told to update their vaccinations so they don't put their grandchildren at risk. ...

Not to mention that ad with granny in a wheelchair being shoved over the cliff. Somehow, an empty wheelchair wouldn't have quite the same impact.

#4.1 Phil, Jr. on 2020-03-12 11:56 (Reply)

My mother moved to our city after my father died; she had macular degeneration and so could not live in the small town where they'd spent most of their married life. So our children grew up with Granny nearby.

Ask our children and they will tell you that having Granny for the 20+ years she was with us was a real blessing (Granny was 99 when she finally passed). As they got older, the grands would go and spend time independently with their Grandmother, and I am certain there were a fair few discussions about topics to which I was not privy. I do know my mother was giving advice on how to have more than one boyfriend at a time (Mother was born in 1909 and grew up in a much different era). The last few months of Mum's life were not easy, but we all walked with her on that final passage. Indeed, one offspring took my laptop down to the nursing home where she was to help her write her last Christmas letter. Some editing was required, but that child remembers with gratitude that she was the one called upon to do that service.

So the Wuhan flu takes out the seniors; it may be cost-effective as far as the health system is concerned, but the premature loss of so many will impoverish the country.

#4.2 Frances on 2020-03-13 00:24 (Reply)

Apples and oranges. In the U.S. we are biased (for now) to treat our elderly and make them better, unless they're in hospice. The dirty secret about the "modern" Italian socialist healthcare system is elderly (i.e. anyone above productive working age) are admitted, given a brief physical/diagnosis, and then sent home to die. All the first- and second-hand smoke doesn't help.

Good Bolyard article here:
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/elderly-will-be-denied-intensive-care-as-coronavirus-overwhelms-italys-national-health-system-experts-warn/

Ignore the sensationalist headline. The real news starts in the 4th paragraph: Rationing health care is nothing new in Italy and in fact has become an "established trend" in recent years amid an ongoing economic crisis that has strained government resources, including the government-run healthcare system. "In a context of grave shortage of medical resources, the allocation criteria need to guarantee that those patients with the highest chance of therapeutic success will retain access to intensive care. It's a matter of giving priority to 'the highest hope of life and survival,'" the health experts explain. It may become necessary," they warn, "to establish an age limit for access to intensive care." So if your Italian grandma shows up at the ER in need of care, she may just be given some cough syrup (or a pain pill) and sent home to die. With a shortage of hospital beds and doctors working themselves to the point exhaustion, hospitals have no other choice but to triage patients and only provide care to the most viable.

There are many lies coming out Italy that the socialists/globalists want you to believe. That they have elder care on a good day is one of them.

#4.3 Bull on 2020-03-13 03:41 (Reply)

How did The Virus jump to Italy. The initially infect Regions—Tuscany and Lombardy—have the by far largest Chinese populations.

#4.3.1 Torre di Rumaggi on 2020-03-14 03:25 (Reply)

"When Did Europe Become Christian?"

Surely only a Protestant would ever ask such a question?

#5 JJM on 2020-03-12 11:29 (Reply)

St Patrick, for one, might have something to say about it.

#5.1 Christopher B on 2020-03-12 11:41 (Reply)

Talking to my former pastor about this a few years ago, he had some interesting insight. Yes, congregations are reporting ever smaller membership rolls. but he said that finding people willing to volunteer to do things back in the 70s when there were more bodies in the seats was no easier than it is now, and it's generational: the people who are involved now had parents that were involved back then. What seems to have happened is that the people who were most loosely attached or saw it as primarily a social endeavor have drifted away to other outlets; the same number of truly core members are still attending. When the congregation reported 700 members or 300 members, there was still the core of 20-30 people who really got things done.

Probably back in the 17th -19th centuries, most of those core people in the state churches of Europe emigrated, largely to the US, and hollowed out the congregations.

#5.2 Another guy named Dan on 2020-03-12 12:25 (Reply)

I can't tell if your tone is humorous or serious. I am a very Catholic and Orthodox sympathetic Protestant, and I was thinking very much of the eras before 1500. Do we count the Vandals, Arian Christians who sacked Rome, or the Goths who settled in Gaul? Do you think that England became Christian during the Roman occupation, during the Beowulf era, in the high Middle Ages, or never? Germans, Scandinavian, and other northern sources have maintained pagan influences down to the 20th C, which are now increasing again. Is Ukraine a Christian country? Do we think Italy is Christian country at present?

#5.3 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-03-12 13:11 (Reply)

I read the piece on your blog and enjoyed the question but I do believe tolerance is highly overrated. The Europeans being over run by moslems, the southern border being ignored, the abortion conflagration, the bake that cake crowd and then AGW. It seems that tolerance and diversity are the watchwords of a minority unwilling to conform but has captured the political system. Christian biblical doctrine is far more inclusive than the secular heaven on earthers politically correct doctrine.

#5.3.1 indyjonesouthere on 2020-03-12 13:41 (Reply)

I would agree with your sentiments. I was thinking more of history. One spur was the re-emergence of German paganism under Hitler. I wondered if perhaps the entire nation had never been fully converted, then realized that this might be similarly applied to other nations as well. Thus I wondered when do we say Christian Europe became Christian, and wat do we mean when we say that?

#5.3.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-03-12 14:25 (Reply)

Agree with your sentiments. I think that from time to time we do move back toward paganism, or at least a sizeable number of people do. The environmental-agw-earthday movement is indistinguishable from religion and just recently the pope was celebrating Pachamama at the Vatican. Their are no lack of examples and it occurs most commonly when economies are under duress.

#5.3.1.1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2020-03-12 14:58 (Reply)

Mara Gay: The Backlash To My Math Mistake Was Racist

Mara Bay informed us that her fourth grade math error was "trivial." You know, Bloomberg spends $500 million on the campaign, which when divvied among 300 million Americans would give each American a million dollars. IOW, a college-educated adult who can't do fourth grade math makes a "trivial" mistake. To me, such incompetence is far from trivial.

#6 Gringo on 2020-03-12 11:53 (Reply)

It is actually an easy mistake to make. But it did reveal that they don't check their work nor do they give any critical thought to what they read.

I blame no one for the error, I do blame them for blindly accepting their initial answer when it should have been intuitively bothersome.

#6.1 JK Brown on 2020-03-12 12:38 (Reply)

Anybody can make a mistake, but to have such an obvious one pointed out, and then respond by saying that it's 'trivial' or 'racist' - in other words, the Wrong-And-Strong approach - invites the notion that a need for behavioral modification is at the root of the problem. Outrageous behavior like this has become an accepted part of the celebrity repertoire.

#6.1.1 Aggie on 2020-03-12 14:09 (Reply)

The lesson here is to a POC EVERYTHING they don't like is "RACIST". To a feminist EVERYTHING they don't like is "SEXIST". It is knee jerk and it is effective and that is why they do it. What it tells me (because it actually is a "tell") is that when you hear that claim you can be 99.99% sure that it is false. We have become so hypersensitive to racism and sexism in this country that the only people who do it are the left who must fake it to be able to claim it exists so they can complain about it. True racism and sexism today only exists on the left.

#6.2 Anon on 2020-03-12 12:40 (Reply)

Orwell called it doublespeak.

#6.3 BillH (Link) on 2020-03-12 13:07 (Reply)

If she had been shown this tweet for the first time when she was live before the camera, I could sympathize with her making a quick mistake. However, the video shows that she brought up the tweet, which meant that she had previously seen the tweet and had time to look at the numbers- where it should be obvious that a million divided by a million is NOT equal to a million. As she had previously seen the tweet and thus had time to do a quick-and-dirty analysis of the tweet, she deserves no sympathy.

A lot of her calling the some of the reactions to her tweet "racist" was because Affirmative Action was brought up. "You would not be there but for Affirmative Action" is a burden that, fairly or not, has been hoisted upon the shoulders of black professionals for the last 5 decades. It is easy to see why black professionals resent this. Clarence Thomas did.

When a college graduate makes a fourth grade math mistake, it is not difficult to see where this accusation came from. In addition, when it is public knowledge that, e.g., upper middle class blacks get breaks on admission to elite colleges that others of lower class and a different race do not get, it is not difficult to see where the "but for Affirmative Action" rant comes from.

#6.4 Gringo on 2020-03-12 14:24 (Reply)

Mary Gay was citing a tweet of Mekita Rivas. Here is how Mekita Rivas responded to being caught in a math mistake. FakeNews Journalists Mekita Rivas, Mara Gay Should Avoid Mathematics

QUOTE:

Mekita Rivas

blah blah blah blah blah peope are telling me my numbers are wrong but the point still stands: he could easily afford to give everyone $1 million and literally never notice.

One recent estimate of Bloomberg's net worth is 55 billion. Were he to divide his fortune into million dollar chunks, he could give 55,000 people a million dollars each. Or, were he to divide his fortune among 300 million people, each person would receive less than $200.

IOW, Mekita Rivas doubled down. She is just as ignorant and arrogant as she was before she initially tweeted about Bloomberg's campaign spending.

Which helps explain why so many view the press with contempt.

#6.5 Gringo on 2020-03-12 14:59 (Reply)

"When did Europe Become Christian?"

January 2, 1492.

That's what they taught us in school, anyway.

#7 Jim on 2020-03-12 18:10 (Reply)

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Thursday, March 12. 2020

Thursday morning links