do i believe that china just stopped transmission?

not really.

they more likely stopped publishing data.

when iran was suspected of fudging the numbers, we were able to pick it out through statistical analysis. i would be highly skeptical of claims coming from the politburo until they can be verified independently.

but, i would suspect that so many people in china may have come in contact with this at this point that they may have substantial immunity building up in the population. 

if the lockdown helped at all, it would have been in keeping vulnerable groups inside - but they could have done that with less severe restrictions on the general population. if you piss all over the wall in a drunken fit and you manage to moisten the flower bed, that's not any particular measure of success in the task of watering the flowers; citing overly broad measures to contain a small group doesn't justify them, that's just poor logic.

"you think having a beer is more important than saving old people?"

well, beer's done me more good in my life. i might say that, if pushed on it.

but, that's not what i'm actually saying.

what i'm saying is that the science doesn't uphold these policies and in some ways even argues against them - what's driving this is puritanism, not science.

if it was actually going to work, then maybe we could have this debate, and i might actually pick beer over the elderly, if it came down to it. but, we're not actually there - it won't work.

if i were to file for a judicial review against these laws, that would be the basis - there is no logical connection between the policy of banning concerts and the desired outcome of reducing transmission. and, that is my position: this will not work.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-220.html

the managers at that retirement home in bc should be charged with criminal negligence (leading to murder) for not taking the clear and obviously required step of banning all visitors.

and, they should shut the place down immediately.

this is not a country-wide emergency that affects everybody.

this is a crisis in a small group of vulnerable people that require targeted attention and aren't even getting it, from what i can tell.

and, our governments at every level and on both sides of the border have failed horribly in their botched response to something that should have been very simple to deal with.

it's the only place in the country that should clearly, unquestionably be locked down, and they're letting people in.

but, you're banned from buying a beer in toronto.

stupid.

i saw a report on cbc the other day that actually suggested they were letting people into this retirement facility in bc, where 6 of the 9 country wide deaths have occurred.

well? this outcome is predictable, when you don't follow the science.

there has been one death in ontario so far, a 70+ year-old who died before he even got his test results back, because he waited too long to get treatment.

there is one death in a retirement home in quebec, and a few in retirement homes in bc.

i'm not saying that isn't unfortunate and whatever.

but it's hardly indicative of an emergency in the province, or suggestive of the need for the kinds of draconian measures that have been pushed down.

really, it demonstrates the point - the only people dying are in care facilities. so, lock the doors to the care facilities and let everybody else carry on.

and, now they're resorting to fox news style disinformation to justify their unscientific, puritanical, fascistic dictates.

it's sad. really.

when's the fucking election, again?

https://globalnews.ca/news/6697273/ontario-coronavirus-30s-ventilators/

ok.

i'm getting the laptop back up, now.

and, i've got a month worth of posts to clean yup, again. lol.

this feels like a fascist coup, in slow motion.

is this the stand?

or is it more like the handmaid's tale?

well? they canceled drinking. what's next?

hail whitmer!

hail!

all hail rev whitmer!

this is not science.

this is puritanism.

more idiocy.

These restrictions do not apply to the following locations: office buildings, grocery stores, markets, food pantries, pharmacies, tribal casinos, drug stores, and providers of medical equipment and supplies, health care facilities, residential care facilities, congregate care facilities, and juvenile justice facilities, warehouse and distribution centers, and industrial and manufacturing facilities.

so, going to a bar and having a beer or seeing a concert is not allowed because of concerns of transmission to the elderly.

but, going to the grocery store and standing in line at the pharmacy after a long day at work, and then visiting your 90 year-old grandmother in the residential care facility is absolutely permitted, and perhaps even encouraged if i get the messaging right - you don't want her to get lonely, do you?

you think that's following scientific recommendations? you think that's based on science?

no. it's based on stupid.

https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Report-Al-Michigan-bars-restaurants-ordered-to-close-Monday-568826061.html

so, the latest stupid thing is moving students out of their dorms and sending them home.

where are these 20-somethings most likely to interact with people they might infect? at school, where they can communicate with each other, and build up immunity? or at home, in their communities, where they're likely to interact with their parents and other older members of the community?

these are universities, too.

this is really, truly a clear demonstration of ubiquitous mass stupidity. everywhere you look, all you can see is stupid, for miles around.

of course it's not working.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/europe/italy-coronavirus-lockdown-intl/index.html

one wonders what the outcome would have been if the constitution hadn't failed.

would there be a more integrated social payer system? would italy have had better access to medical supplies when it needed them?

but, i hope that this is the narrative that takes hold - that border closures are making the problem worse, not better. 

https://time.com/5805783/coronavirus-european-union/

does cold weather kill viruses?

yes. sort of.

first, viruses tend to react badly to water. when you hear about water-borne viruses, they tend to either come from a host like a mosquito (who like standing water) or they end up embedded in a medium like animal feces. viruses are just protein - they will dissolve in running water. you should still use soap, as the ph reaction helps increase the efficacy, but water alone will kill the bulk of it.

second, while viruses may freeze in cold weather, the thaw process kills the bulk of them. and, this is where some shift in mindset is necessary.

anything that kills a virus will kill a percentage of the amount of it. so, if you wash your hands in lukewarm water, you'll kill most of it, but you'd have to do it for a really long time to kill all of it. and, if you increase the temperature, you'll kill more of it. and, if you add soap you'll kill even more of it. but, even washing your hands vigorously with soap in hot water for a long time is still probably only going to get 95% of the shit off of them - because your hands are filthy, no matter how hard you try.

you hear about viruses being thawed out in the ice, but it's the epsilon that's left. like washing your hands, the freeze-thaw process will only kill about 95% of the virus, leaving that little bit for scientists to go looking for.

so, is cold weather effective at killing viruses? yes - if cold means below freezing, and you're talking about surface contact or airborne particles. obviously, that doesn't hold once you get inside. but, the effectiveness of freezing weather is basic chemistry. and, don't listen to the people suggesting otherwise.

this is a catastrophe.

and, you shouldn't blame foreigners - you should blame your own government.

i need to create and send out some more documents tonight before i hunker down and get to work.

and, what's worse?

the government is no doubt going to blame it's botched strong-arm, authoritarian policies on a public that wouldn't comply.

no.

this is a failure in public policy, a failure at the level of government, which chased unicorns and insisted on absurd levels of complexity in it's response, instead of being rational and doing the simplest, most effective thing.

we could have just quarantined the elderly.

but, no.

we decided on Strong Leadership instead.

and, this is what we get for it.

and, let's be clear for context - what's happening in the market is not similar to 2008 or 1987. not any more.

the infamous 1929 crash wiped out 25% of the value of the market.

we've lost around 35% so far.

this is the worst crash, ever.

but, the money's still there, and then some. so, if you can get confidence up, it should come back - creating fools out of a lot of people who are going to end up selling low and buying high.

if you were to transfer me $5000 tomorrow, i'd say "thanks" and then wait for the bars to reopen to spend it.

what else am i going to do with it?

i don't oppose this, don't misunderstand me.

but, instead of quarantining the people that are at risk and allowing immunity to build, which would require minimal disruption and be highly effective, even if it might be seen as distasteful to family-first type conservatives, we are going to:

(1) shut down the entire economy for months, thereby

(2) creating massive levels of unemployment and then

(3) borrow billions of dollars from central banks at high interest rates to

(4) essentially put everybody on welfare.

we're actually doing this.

it's insane.

my gst rebates come in for april and july, so i'm not sure if he misspoke and i should expect the increase in april (or july) or if i should expect a separate check in may.

i'll take it. but, i'm going to have to wait for the economy to open back up before i have anywhere to spend it.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-unveils-82-billion-in-aid-tax-deferrals-for-coronavirus/

i really think that the boomers need to shut up and listen to young people, on this: our patience is not infinite, and we won't abide by these rules for very long.

maybe this is the event where the boomers lose control...maybe it's a turning point. it's happened before. look up the peasants' revolt, which happened as a consequence of the plague.

well? if you're going to lock us down indefinitely, you should expect a revolt. duh?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/politics/young-people-coronavirus-caution-white-house/index.html

the divisional court appears to be completely closed.

alright.

i'm not happy about any of this, and i hope that the government falls over it.

and, i just checked the exchange rate. yikes.

if it wasn't clear 20 years ago, it should be now: there should be a concerted effort by the feds to diversify revenues.

we could end up with a credit rating hit, which is what actually matters on the issue of deficits. the instinct will no doubt be to scale back on transition funding. but, dammit, look at the data...

if we had transitioned 20 years ago, right? 

right?

alas...

we might have to take the credit rating hit. if the saudis keep producing at these rates, the oil sands aren't going to get us anywhere any time soon.

a lot of the kids that carry this have no symptoms.

you have no idea if they have it or not.

and, what is that going to do to some of these people?

imagine this.

first, the government cancels the schools and daycares, leaving you to scramble to do something with your kids. so, you call your retired mom. of course she says yes.

three weeks later, you're grappling with the fact that your kids killed your parents by giving them the disease - and you organized it. how do you process that?

and, who is responsible for it?

the kids are only dangerous when they're around seniors. why not address the actual problem, instead of just banning everything like an idiot nazi?

so, they have closed both daycares and schools in ontario...

expect this to happen soon: a sharp rise in cases where grandparents contract the disease from their grandchildren, after needing to step in as emergency babysitters.

if you work in a bar, though, maybe now's a good time to put up a babysitting ad?

and, if you leave people in a situation where they have to go to work and can't find child care, what are they going to do with the kids?

they're going to drop them at their parents - which is probably the absolute worst possible outcome, and the thing that should be most strenuously avoided.

something else they're doing in the uk is allowing exclusive access to grocery stores for seniors during specific hours. this is a smart compromise - so long as you don't then shuffle them on to the bus.

i'm sorry to say it, but this is the government that appears to be developing smart, novel ideas and showing real "leadership" in implementing them, no doubt in spite of the prime minister.

there's different arguments about the schools.

one is that you don't want the kids spreading it. but, i'm not sure that keeping them out of school is really going to help. are you going to cancel daycares, too? rather, this would strike me as something you can't really stop.

the argument i initially presented was that you want to keep the teachers, many of whom are older. away from the kids. but, maybe you can deal with that with substitute teachers. or, maybe a few can get the hint and fucking retire already.

a third argument is that it might actually backfire, as if you do cancel daycares and schools then you're all of a sudden stuck with a high percentage of nurses that have kids that need to stay home to deal with. this is a good point that i hadn't thought of, but it could be dealt with by opening daycares that have youngish workers. or, you could just send the older teachers home...

my understanding is that the uk is kind of dealing with a mess with this right now, as they don't want to close the schools due to the third argument, but are finding that staff levels are too low to keep a lot of them open.

and, this is maybe the only country that is doing the right thing in forcibly quarantining the elderly.

new york is also facing a lot of pushback in keeping the schools open, i would suspect under argument three, because they no doubt realize the child care mayhem it would create, which could potentially exacerbate a looming crisis.

i just don't understand why so many people think it's necessary to take these ridiculous steps, when it's so easy to just quarantine the old.

stop.

the idiots shut the economy down over something that could have been dealt with by volunteer staff at nursing homes.

they need to be held accountable for this...

i want to see an opposition party somewhere stand up and be honest about this and start nailing their government for mismanaging the situation and creating this ridiculous mess.

so, i know the divisional court is adjourned until the first week of april.

i don't know exactly what that means. they're slow to answer the phone this morning...

does it mean that the date i have scheduled for june 23rd needs to be rescheduled? or only that issues between now and april are affected?

again: if the purpose of this is to stop me from posting on the internet, it's not working is it?

it's kind of making things worse, don't you think?

if you had left my laptop alone, i'd probably be done january, 2014 by now and on to period 3...

The federal government is working on a $1 trillion coronavirus stimulus package to try and rescue the U.S. economy from the abyss opened by the coronavirus pandemic. 

no.

the problem was not created by the virus - the problem was created by the ridiculous overreactions of state governments.

let's be clear what the crisis is here - it's a crisis of authoritarianism, a pandemic of statist tyranny.

as it is, i can't go out for five minutes without having to reimage the machine.

it's really killing my workflow.

so, it seems like i'll be inside until at least the end of the month.

after the entry in the apartment yesterday afternoon, i feel the need to reimage the laptop. i wanted to do that last night, but i nodded off when i got out of the shower.

if i can stay inside for a lengthy period, perhaps i can get things back to normal for a bit.

i might have to wait for the carnage to run it's course a little to see if i can take advantage of any decrease in rental prices.

if the school year is canceled early, and there are restrictions on reentry for international students in the long run, that should drive down the cost of rent quite a bit.

i wonder what the rental market looks like right now.

hrmmn.

in canada, we have something called the oakes test that asks whether restrictions on constitutional rights are justified in a free and democratic society.

while the science does not uphold the efficacy of closing mass events, and i would rule that such restrictions are not justified under the oakes test, the science is absolutely clear that discrimination on the basis of age would be.

i have no interest in strong leaders. but, if you want to talk about what leadership would look like, it would look something like that - it would be unpopular, and it might lead to a collapse in the government in the long run, but it's the only way to save their lives.

pretending you can stop the spread of it is just signing their death warrant, and destroying the lives of everybody else in the process.

what we are doing is the worst, and the dumbest, approach - it will not save anybody's life, and it will have catastrophic economic effects in the form of a wave of negative externalities.

in the process, ~.6-.8% of us, almost entirely over the age of 70, are going to die, if we don't take drastic steps to prevent them from interacting with the general population, which we seem to be unwilling to do.

it's not natural selection when you're talking about old people dying. natural selection has to do with reproduction, which they've already passed their ability to do. but, the development of new viruses is a very natural and normal response in organisms that are experiencing overpopulation. 

you're not helping anybody by denying the facts, which are uncomfortable, but need to be confronted and reacted to.

i don't have any family in the city i live in.

my father died of cancer in 2013. his father died in the late 80s or early 90s (i remember it, but i can't place it in time). his mother moved to british columbia a few years later in an attempt to start a new life and asked her children not to contact her, although some contact was reestablished many years later; i have no relationship with her, by her choice. i'd guess most of my father's siblings are probably dead by now, as they were all in very poor health, but i've maintained no contact with any of them at all.

my mother is in her 60s and has smoked since she was 12. she's a sitting duck. i don't want anything to do with her, generally, but i wouldn't go anywhere near her right now - she should lock herself inside of the house until christmas. she can order groceries online. i don't have a relationship with her father. her mother is now 80, and has apparently been moved into a care facility due to a struggle with dementia. i would avoid her like i have the plague....

so, i don't have to deal with this.

but, i would not be stupid about it. i would be very clear: i would tell them i am a clear and present danger to their health, and i can't go near them for their own safety. and, if they don't understand then that's too fucking bad.

i'm not going to coddle them with lies and delusions to stop them from crying, and kill them in the process.

because i know better: attempts to prevent this from spreading are futile. we're going to have to build immunity, and we will.

as hitchens would say, we're all a bunch of dumb primates.

and, we seem insistent on dying with our families, at the behest of all logic. we will ignore, pervert or dismantle the evidence to uphold the primacy of family.

and, we're going to suffer for our stupidity.

and, then we'll blame it on sin. because we're really that dumb. wait for it...

we have a simple, effective, achievable strategy in front of us.

but, we won't do it. 

we insist on demonstrations of mass stupidity, instead.

viruses don't care about equality. they don't kill people equally, in equal proportions or as a response to affirmative action programs. 

they're very mean, and they're not fair.

smallpox was totally racist.

so, the absolute dumbest way to approach a virus is by resorting to these liberal appeals to universalism, because the virus is a predator - it will pick off the weak. 

we are going to have to discriminate against people on the basis of age and other things to save their lives and, increasingly, it would appear, to stop the society from collapsing.

we could simply put a ban on communicating with old people, but, instead we're canceling everything and shutting down the border, so that we don't inconvenience them, or something. it's retarded...

we're retarded. collectively. there's your statement of solidarity - we're all a bunch of fucking idiots.

she's right.

and, the world's full of idiots that want to prioritize emotions and positive thinking over science and facts.

if you care about your immunosuppressed 23 year-old gay eskimo friend that much, then tell them to stay inside and avoid crowds of healthy young people that are building immunity to a new virus, as has happened throughout our biological history. don't tell me i have to suffer to save the lives of people i don't care about.

i mean, this is literally trying to stop natural selection from running it's course. if you die from this before you can breed, then you lost the game of biological roulette - you were too weak to beat it, and you died. that's how evolution works, and sitting around and crying in your church or mosque about it isn't going to change reality. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/6691201/coronavirus-vanessa-hudgens-under-fire/

i repeat: you will not get sick because of foreigners.

it is your friends & family that will make you sick.

ugh.

no.

you don't want to close the american border. you want to undo the previous restrictions. 

the virus is everywhere. it's not coming from out of the country. it's not coming from foreign lands. it's right here. 

your neighbours and friends and family members are far more likely to get you sick than random people from out of the country. you have to mentally undo this media framing and figure out how to deal with reality....

https://globalnews.ca/news/6693593/coronavirus-canada-united-states-travel-ban/

so, they foolishly shut down the economy, with no evidence that it would make any difference, then they get shocked at the market crashing after they scared everybody into being stupid, and have to scramble to bail everybody and everything out.

and, people just swallow it. eager to help. clueless. but affable.

idiots.

so, i actually sent something to my landlord.

it turns out he has footage; i'm on camera when i come in and out. fancy that. i didn't know that...

i'm not particularly upset about it.

but, he checked it and said nobody came up to the door when i was gone. and, yet - clearly, somebody was in here.

i haven't seen the footage, myself.

so, what we learn from this is:

(1) there's footage. supposedly.

(2) the landlord is probably a cop. which i already knew.

i think he was legit gone. it was the stinky female upstairs that must have snuck down and swigged on my vodka.

as was the case with the smoking (which he also denied), let's hope that saying something is enough to change things. let's hope that's all i had to do...

if not, the next step is setting up a webcam in here.