COVID-19 thread

[Nortaneous]

He said he'd do it, then he did it.

Where was the religious test? Did any of Trump's executive orders concern themselves with the precise definition of "Muslim"? I'd expect a Muslim ban to have to include language determining what a Muslim is.The Druze religion developed from an Islamic sect, but isn't typically considered to be Islam today - do the Druze count as Muslims? What about followers of Rene Guenon? Or was the plan to just leave the definition of "Muslim" to the courts?

Another hypothesis is that Trump was, like, a politician.

I don't even get this... you're admitting that the policy is bad, but badness is a binary quality? Is the conservative policy now that there is no such thing as the word "worse", or does this semantic nihilism only apply when people criticize Donald Trump?

I don't care about Trump one way or the other. To the extent that he was good, he was good; to the extent that he was bad, he was bad. Eventually he'll be in the history books with Grover Cleveland, and if there's any 'long arc of history' at all, it pretty clearly bends toward evaluating Trump with the same methods we use to evaluate Cleveland. (If there was ever a more boring president than Cleveland, fill in his name instead.)

I just don't think that the history books will be like, and then, under Trump, the US government started being mean to the Palestinians, which was something that only Trump could've gotten away with.

I'm also not convinced that media pressure was relevant here. Half of my exposure to the NYT these days is people in the pro-Palestine camp complaining about how they bring out the passive voice whenever the IDF brains a ten-year-old. Is there a huge iceberg of pro-Palestine media that I've missed by not owning a TV?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

He said he'd do it, then he did it.

Where was the religious test? Did any of Trump's executive orders concern themselves with the precise definition of "Muslim"? I'd expect a Muslim ban to have to include language determining what a Muslim is.The Druze religion developed from an Islamic sect, but isn't typically considered to be Islam today - do the Druze count as Muslims? What about followers of Rene Guenon? Or was the plan to just leave the definition of "Muslim" to the courts?

Another hypothesis is that Trump was, like, a politician.

Not all discrimination is overt and in codified language that expresses how it functions. One can implement segregation by any other name through any number of means, from academic tracking and access to honours and the like programmes to private schools to whatever else. Are the people involved (at least consciously) racist? Not necessarily. Does that mean some form of discrimination isn't happening? No.

[zompist]

He said he'd do it, then he did it.

Where was the religious test? Did any of Trump's executive orders concern themselves with the precise definition of "Muslim"? I'd expect a Muslim ban to have to include language determining what a Muslim is.The Druze religion developed from an Islamic sect, but isn't typically considered to be Islam today - do the Druze count as Muslims? What about followers of Rene Guenon? Or was the plan to just leave the definition of "Muslim" to the courts?

When a federal court throws out your EO as violating the Establishment Clause, maybe it violates the Establishment Clause. The EO did actually refer to religion, to benefit Christian refugees.

Another hypothesis is that Trump was, like, a politician.

Sure, which means he's not a lawyer. Undoubtedly he told a lawyer "Write me a Muslim ban but make it legal." In fact that's just how Giuliani explained it, as quoted in the court document.

I just don't think that the history books will be like, and then, under Trump, the US government started being mean to the Palestinians, which was something that only Trump could've gotten away with.

I didn't say no one had ever been "mean to the Palestinians". But Trump changed US policy to be even more accommodating to the Israeli right, and ignored the Palestinians entirely. Previous presidents, Dem and Rep, officially advocated a two-state solution and disapproved of the settlement process.

I'm also not convinced that media pressure was relevant here. Half of my exposure to the NYT these days is people in the pro-Palestine camp complaining about how they bring out the passive voice whenever the IDF brains a ten-year-old. Is there a huge iceberg of pro-Palestine media that I've missed by not owning a TV?

I don't watch TV either. I've heard that the Democrats are not as reflexively pro-Netanyahu as they used to be, but that's probably years away from actually affecting policy.

[Nortaneous]

Sure, which means he's not a lawyer. Undoubtedly he told a lawyer "Write me a Muslim ban but make it legal." In fact that's just how Giuliani explained it, as quoted in the court document.

Whether or not that's relevant is, like, one of the most prominent disagreements in the relevant canon. I generally don't think legislative intent should matter, but proponents of any theory of interpretation have lower conversion rates than street preachers.

The EO did actually refer to religion, to benefit Christian refugees.

Which order or proclamation contains the word "Christian"? It's entirely possible that I'm missing something, but I can't find the word "Christian".

Do you mean something like Section 5 of EO 13769? Is it unreasonable for a refugee program not to have something about persecution of minority religions? (Can a majority religion even be persecuted? It seems within the realm of possibility, but I've definitely heard it's not.)

How do refugee programs handle religious persecution under Biden? Do they just not? I'll be surprised if they just don't.

I didn't say no one had ever been "mean to the Palestinians". But Trump changed US policy to be even more accommodating to the Israeli right, and ignored the Palestinians entirely. Previous presidents, Dem and Rep, officially advocated a two-state solution and disapproved of the settlement process.

Sure, but the question at hand is whether Trump would've faced significantly more pushback in an early and strict restriction of travel than a generic Democrat, and I don't think travel restrictions are comparable to accommodation of the Israeli right. If anything, I saw less disapproval of the fake peace deal than seemed warranted.

And speaking of Kushner, he apparently didn't think COVID would be a big deal. What other acute events aren't in rich dipshits' threat models? (Power grid failures? War? Helium depletion, somehow?)

I've heard that the Democrats are not as reflexively pro-Netanyahu as they used to be

That's also what I've heard. It sounds to me like Netanyahu won't last much longer even in Israel, but who knows if that'll make a difference at this point.

[Ares Land]

Of course Trump would have suffered pushback no matter what he did.
That's what making clear at every possible occasion that you're a complete idiot and that you can't be trusted does to you.

The assumption that the bad orange man wants to do something stupid isn't unwarranted, when you consider that the bad orange man came up with such gems as 'rocketman', 'grab 'em by the pussy' and 'we'll make Mexico pay for the wall.'

[Moose-tache]

The following year must have been anti-climatic!

You're damn straight it was!

Well played sir, well played.

"climatic vs climactic" is the "literally vs figuratively" of the 21st century.

Anyway, Covid...
Our school year ended early because they didn't think to plan that a recent holiday could cause a spike in cases. Remind me how we landed on the moon again? No, forget the moon, how did we ever figure out fire?
For me, I've accepted that I'm never going to get the second dose of the vaccine, and I'll just lie when I'm in another country and start from the first dose of a different vaccine. I hear in America it's like buying doughnuts. I am so jealous.

[Vardelm]

I hear in America it's like buying doughnuts. I am so jealous.

Yep. I got mine a week before it was supposed to be available to the general population under 50. The states have various programs to incentivize people to get vaccinated, ranging from a free beer to a lottery ticket. The availability is a combination of the US having production capacity and financial power to buy doses, plus the idiocy of some 40% of the population (pick your % number) that are knuckle-dragging pandemic deniers. I'd be happy to see the U.S. send a lot of its doses elsewhere & let those people learn the hard way when we get another surge in the late fall in regions where there are more of them.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I too would love to see those unused doses sent where they're actually wanted. I didn't need an incentive to get vaccinated other than not wanting Covid. It sucked for three-ish days, but now I worry a lot less when I go out (I still wear a mask, though).

[MacAnDàil]

It seems my message didn't send the other day so I'll rewrite it.

Another hypothesis is that Trump was, like, a politician.

Trump was an awful businessman long before becoming an awful politician.

I don't care about Trump one way or the other. To the extent that he was good, he was good; to the extent that he was bad, he was bad. Eventually he'll be in the history books with Grover Cleveland, and if there's any 'long arc of history' at all, it pretty clearly bends toward evaluating Trump with the same methods we use to evaluate Cleveland. (If there was ever a more boring president than Cleveland, fill in his name instead.)

I just don't think that the history books will be like, and then, under Trump, the US government started being mean to the Palestinians, which was something that only Trump could've gotten away with.

Trump may be accused of many things, but not boring. He'll be remembered as the only president to never have 50% approval rate, the only president to be impeached twice, to never have the popular vote, to encourage an insurrection against the US government, to spread an average of twenty lies a day. And that's without going into the dozens of pending lawsuits, among other things. That's all exceptionally awful, but not boring.

[Vijay]

There are some countries that still have zero cases!

Such as?

It's not even implausible - it's what Reagan did with AIDS!

Wait, what?

This is standard Democrat lore (and, unusually for the genre, true) - I'm surprised you're confused by it.

I'm confused because I have no idea what the fuck you're going on about. You're saying Reagan ignored AIDS to kill off teh gay so they couldn't vote Democrat? I've never heard such an extreme proposal from a Democratic perspective. Or from any perspective...until now, apparently.

On intelligence: I do agree that China was covering up something

China didn't cover up shit.

Time Magazine, May 10-17 issue, p. 57:

In November 2019, Francis deSouza, president and CEO of California-based Illumina, learned from his client-support team based in China that something big in the infectious-disease world might be brewing. Health authorities in Wuhan were seeing cases of a mysterious pneumonia-like illness, and were starting to genetically sequence samples to figure out what they were dealing with—and "scoping out some equipment they needed" to do it at the scale and speed they needed, says deSouza. They turned to Illumina, which makes sequencing machines that can spit out the genetic code of any living thing in hours. In this case, they were hoping that the genetic information would reveal whether the culprit was a known pathogen or something entirely new.

While the orders were being arranged, to speed things along, samples from the first patients in Wuhan were sent to the lab of Zhang Yongzhen at Fudan University in Shanghai. Zhang, an experienced virologist, had in his lab an Illumina Nova-Seq, a copier-size machine that is the company's most powerful workhorse for decoding genomes quickly and accurately. On Jan. 10, his team outed the virus behind COVID-19, posting its entire genome, the equivalent of its fingerprint, on a public genetic database so researchers around the world could use it to develop new drugs and vaccines.

besides, he's a massive germophobe

Jimmy Kimmel: So, he did not have a condom...
Stormy Daniels: No.
Sarah Paulson: Nope.
SD: Are you...?
J: Which, supposedly, he's a germophobe...is weird, right?
SD: That, he was not a germophobe.
J: He was not a germophobe at all.
SD: Nooo!
J: Yeah. And you...made love...
SD: Gross! What's wrong with you?!
J: I mean...
SD: I laid there and prayed for death!

[MacAnDàil]

All the countries that have zero Covid-19 cases are Pacific island countries or dependent territories, except for Turkmenistan and North Korea.

[Vijay]

All the countries that have zero Covid-19 cases are Pacific island countries or dependent territories, except for Turkmenistan and North Korea.

But Turkmenistan and North Korea only claim to have zero cases, and even the Federated States of Micronesia has had one case.

[doctor shark]

More local things: the vaccination program is moving quickly enough that I finally got to book my appointment to get stabbed vaccinated; first dose is on 1 July with the second dose on 6 August. So now I don't have to plan a trip back to the US for vaccination...

[Raphael]

More local things: the vaccination program is moving quickly enough that I finally got to book my appointment to get stabbed vaccinated; first dose is on 1 July with the second dose on 6 August. So now I don't have to plan a trip back to the US for vaccination...

Congratulations!

[Vijay]

I did go out to a restaurant last week with my mom, but I'm definitely not leaving the house now.

[Ahzoh]

I got my first dose of Pfizer jab on the 3rd. And I didn’t even get any side effects.

[Raphael]

Great!

[Raphael]

In other news, US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has stated that she's sure Covid-19 is a bioweapon because she doesn't believe God would create a disease that kills people. Apparently no one ever taught her that there have been infectious diseases that kill people since long before human beings got the ability to develop bioweapons.

[Ahzoh]

The bubonic plague was a medieval bioweapon developed in medieval labs.

[Travis B.]

In other news, US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has stated that she's sure Covid-19 is a bioweapon because she doesn't believe God would create a disease that kills people. Apparently no one ever taught her that there have been infectious diseases that kill people since long before human beings got the ability to develop bioweapons.

She also believes that Fauci personally had a direct role in the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 bioweapon...