World Politics

[MetalCaveman]

Kinda amusing to see Mexico-Bolivia relations just go to hell. Didn't expect this one.  

[Mal]

So looks like Iran accidentally shot down the plane that left Tehran the other day. At this point I think we should just bury the missile attack and assassination. Just toss the ego. Enough people have died down this road that we really shouldn't be on... 

[MetalCaveman]

Evil Neoliberal governments of the past:

 

-Here, have some free healthcare, all ya'll need is a single small payment per year and everything will be covered, if you have cancer we'll get you to some of the best hospitals in the world and cover the cost!

 

Glorious "left" of today:

 

-No more free healthcare, now you'll get FREE* healthcare! We're done with evil neoliberal policies of the past and moving towards a brighter future!

 

*FREE: You no longer have to pay once per year because now you have to pay every time you visit a doctor, public hospitals are now also going to be understaffed and under-equipped thanks to budget cuts, also also, because certain conditions are no longer covered and the previous agreements with international medical institutions are no longer valid, if you arrive at a public hospital with cancer, burns, hepatitis, cardiac arrest, or some similar condition you're fucked, this system does not cover any of that.

[TheMightyEthan]

Free

of

Healthcare

[MetalCaveman]

 

Right: Child soldiers in Somalia

Left: Child soldiers in Mexico (Guerrero)

 

 

Kids talk about how they had to stop going to school because if they went they would get lifted (kidnapped) by the local cartel, another kid talks about how he had to stop going to school after they murdered one of his classmates.

 

In response to this they have joined the local self-defence groups, the only ones trying to do something about all the shit going on because the government has turned its back on them.

 

The response from the president was to label this group as an organised crime gang, recruiting children for their criminal enterprises, while going on about how his strategy is working and there's no more violence in the country.

 

Shit's fucked and it's getting worse every day.

[TheMightyEthan]

[MetalCaveman]

 

FUCAM Which provided care and attention to women with breast cancer has announced they won't be able to provide their services for free after they failed to reach an agreement with the INSABI (the new "healthcare" stuff). In January they stopped receiving funds and had been operating with what they had until now, when it is no longer feasible to provide the attention, medical treatments, medicines, etc. for free. This is added to the many people who have been unable to receive treatment for different kinds of cancer after the government failed to secure the needed medicines.

 

 

Then there's the case of Fatima, a 7 year old girl that was kidnapped and murdered, her body found in a plastic bag. Authorities have not been helpful, releasing a sketch of the suspect, only to say it wasn't her, then they announced they had found the people responsible, except they did not know who they were, and now, they claim that have arrested the people behind it. One more to the list of murders that target women and young girls, an issue that has sparked protests in the face of a government that not only doesn't care, but actively demonises the victims.

 

When talking about the murder the president said "I'm not going to talk about it, because it'll sour the mood and distract people from the raffle*." When talking about the protests, where people have painted walls, statues and other stuff, his words "Don't go around painting things OK?! We know how to turn things around, so ya'll better do things peacefully, got it?".

 

Meanwhile, rape, housebreaking, and homicides (particularly those targeting women) will no longer be considered serious crimes. On the other hand, if you deposit more than $200 into your bank account and cannot justify them in a way that satisfies SAT, you could be tried for federal crimes, on par with narco bosses, sicarios and others (not really, they get preferential treatment and are more likely to walk away free).

 

*In case you didn't know, the president is trying to give away the presidential air-plane using the national lotto. During his campaign he claimed that "Not even Obama has a plane like this one!", and that he would get rid of it, using the money to give it to the poor. He hasn't been able to sell it, he can't auction it and it turns out it's costing more to keep that thing grounded than it would cost for him to actually use the damn thing. Also, the amount they think they'll make is nothing compared to the "savings" they claimed they would get, specially with how much they're wasting on useless refineries, trains that will destroy the jungle, and airports that will not be usable by some major airlines.  

 

It's been harder and harder to predict where we'll be in a few years, though it's certainly a fun thought experiment.  

[TheMightyEthan]

How can it possibly cost more grounded than in use?

[MetalCaveman]

They kept it in the US for a year, according to INAI (institute for information access), the Peña Nieto administration budgeted 17 million pesos per year for it's use, the current administration paid 16 million pesos to keep it in storage, plus other maintenance costs which caused it to ascend a bit beyond the 17 million it took to use.

 

Apparently, they brought it back not too long ago, so not it's in SEDENA hangars, costing 80K pesos per week to keep it there (around 4 million per year), plus 100,000 every time they clean it, plus other maintenance costs, the total of which is unknown, but it is supposed to be less than before, so yeah, sorry about that, mistake on my part, didn't know they had brought it back.  

[Mal]

After a week after my mom's two week monitoring period (she went to Hong Kong and Singapore in late January), I was hoping that COVID-19 would kind of burn out in China but containment of COVID-19 to China failed. It's probably going to burn through the world in the coming months or years even if China contains it due to it seems to have a foothold in South Korea and Italy. Iran and Japan seems likely as well. 

 

A strong flu that no one has immunity to is going to be nice. Don't pass it on to the elderly, the young and ill. 

[Mister Jack]

I've read articles suggesting that this new coronavirus is more than likely going to be a fact of life from now on. Really low mortality rate but impossible to fully contain since it shows mild or even no symptoms in most people. They say 40 to 70 percent of the human race will likely be exposed to it within the next year. I'm not trying to make it sound like a doomsday scenario because I don't think it is. Just saying we'd all better be extra vigilant about our hand washing. 

[CorgiShinobi]

I swear one of my coworkers caught something while he was in Chicago. There was breaking news that coronavrius had been discovered there the same day when he flew back. He was really sick at first, but now he seems to have low energy. The latter is probably due to poor sleeping habits, but the department went from teasing to concern once he acted like he was on death's door a little while ago.

 

Like, just our luck our neck of the woods could be ground zero for something. 

[TheMightyEthan]

I mean, it's basically like a slightly-worse flu, it's not the end of the world. H1N1 that everyone was flipping out about like 10 years ago is now endemic worldwide and is just one of the normal flus that goes around periodically, and society has not ground to a halt.

[Mal]

I get what you are saying but this can ground society to a halt. All you need to do is look at China, South Korea and Italy. No one has immunity to it so at this point it can burn through a population if left unchecked, which can mean that it only takes one person to set off an outbreak (e.g., South Korea and probably Italy. Likely Iran as well). COVID-19 hit China just before the Lunar New Year (it's the largest holiday Chinese communities and China celebrate. China get like a two week holiday for it) which kind of stopped everything.

As an aside, of note, at the similar time there is/was a flu wrecking the swine population/stock in China. It's kind of like having a turkey shortage during the holidays out here in the States. Kind of not good. Kind of can make due with chicken or duck but a roast pig is kind of the norm for Chinese New Year dinner. With COVID-19, it was quite quaint this year in China. 

 

In some small way, it's also shaking Chinese communities around the globe. People in those Chinese communities are taking extra precautions along with people outside those communities, for better or worse, are doing so too for whatever reasons. All the cases in the United States (outside of the folks returning from the Diamond Princess) are all an one or two off since the infected knew about their chances of getting COVID-19 and was conscious of spreading the virus so they all self quarantined to stop any possible spread besides to their spouses. I suspect that South Korea, Italy and Iran are cases of unknowing infected spreading the virus. 

For other Americans, there probably will be personal stories from the people on board and back from the Diamond Princess. I wonder how many people will be financially wrecked by this by missing work (2-3+ weeks and growing) or be hindered or wrecked by medical expenses (heard of one case where someone suspected they had it but they didn't and now they have like a $1,500 bill to deal with). 

 

If/when it get worse, me and my family should take precautions as well since we have an elderly person at home (my grandma) who is the part of the at-risk population. I don't think none of us want to share some sort of responsibility of aiding in the death of her. And I have personal experience of almost doing it, along with my older brother, of doing such a thing to one of our younger brothers with meningitis back in the 90's (pretty sure I shared this on Discord). Kind of why I go a bit tad extreme at times (one time I suggested to take a shower/change clothes before returning from an ER/hospital visit to my brother and I since my then new-born niece was home with zero vaccinations).

 

So yeah... waiting for this to become endemic but getting to that point is going to be fun. Also got to hope that it doesn't decide to become the Spanish Flu 2.0 and start knocking us healthy folks out like flies (probably the granddaddy of all pandemics).

[MetalCaveman]

On 2/24/2020 at 8:32 PM, Mal said:

So yeah... waiting for this to become endemic but getting to that point is going to be fun. Also got to hope that it doesn't decide to become the Spanish Flu 2.0 and start knocking us healthy folks out like flies (probably the granddaddy of all pandemics).

 

*Cattle Decapitation intensifies*

 

IOC is considering cancelling the Olympic Games if this thing isn't under control.

 

https://apnews.com/58043910be7bdc6818344bdee2096bc2

 

Because my family lost a relative to influenza, many are kinda paranoid about this whole thing, I'm hoping it won't be long until it's under control and treatments/vaccines are available, but at the same time, looking at the state of hospitals here, if it hits, it's going to hit hard.

[Mal]

A rollout of a proven vaccine is probably a year out at best. Guess we got to take general preventative measures to heart (if not already), stay home if we do get it and treat it the best we can at home or go to the hospital. Though, home is where my 80 year old grandma along with four (healthy adults) others are so...

Then of course there's the young ones in my extended family.

 

Ultimately, it's about the at-risk populations who may be right at home. With no vaccine, guess we'll all roll the dice. Ugh, I'm going to leave this problem for Future-Me...

[Mal]

Ooo, the slightly longer glances. This will be fun.

[MetalCaveman]

First cases confirmed in Mexico, one in CDMX the other in Sinaloa. 

 

I think I'll swing by some stores tomorrow, just buy some stuff to try and stay home as much as possible. The bright side is that I should now be able to finish Horizon, DOOM 2/3 and maybe a rerun of DOOM(2016) before Eternal comes out.  

[Mal]

Bay Area is panicking a bit. Start of little to no masks, hand sanitizers, hand soap, rice, chicken and dwindling stock of cheaper meat. My household stocked up a bit. It SHOULD blow over by the end of March, maybe April (Federal response is... poor. Trump chosed Pence to lead...). We'll see... I'm debating on discussing this with my employer. Line up some office tasks I can do remotely in the case I need to isolate at home or maybe keep me away from the Bay Area so I can continue working.

[Mal]

While this pertaining to the United States response to COVID-19, I'm putting it here since it's part of a larger issue. That and election year stuff. 

 

My feelings for the federal COVID-19 response in the United States is that they are doing the least while still being able to say that they are doing something. They do not care that it spreads or how unchecked it spreads. If it does spread, it is up to state and local governments to deal with it. But yeah, try to live normally but I feel like the breaks will be slammed down in the near future. 

[MetalCaveman]

So that escalated quickly.

 

After our president did everything he could to destroy the health care system we had, leaving hospitals without medicines and doctors, now he and his people are proposing that Mexico allow those people affected by the US travel ban into our country. Not the best time to play the "we being humanitarian here!" card.

 

My aunt had plans to go to Puebla and see the Passion Play there with some friends, I advised her not to since it's only likely to get worse, and she's in that 60+ years old group.

 

Good thing is I currently work from home anyway, and avoiding large crowds has always been my speciality, didn't expect it to come in handy, but hey, here we are.

[TheMightyEthan]

On 2/24/2020 at 1:20 PM, TheMightyEthan said:

I mean, it's basically like a slightly-worse flu, it's not the end of the world. H1N1 that everyone was flipping out about like 10 years ago is now endemic worldwide and is just one of the normal flus that goes around periodically, and society has not ground to a halt.

 

This post has aged poorly.

 

What I didn't understand at the time is that even though yes, it's basically a slightly-worse flu, the main difference is that only a small fraction of the total population gets the flu in any given year, whereas estimates are that 70% of the population will catch coronavirus, so the "slightly worse" death rate means between 1-5 million people are likely to die in the US alone, and between 25-125 million world wide. And that's assuming the medical system remains basically functional. That's insane.

[Mal]

Looks like Mexico might close the border with the US. 

 

[MetalCaveman]

 

 

 

Though I doubt it'll happen, given our president is all about welcoming everyone because rejecting sick people would be "inhumane" according to him, further, they're refusing to cancel events and won't ban any large gatherings because of the effect it would have on the economy. Closing the border would go against all their pretty speeches and assurances that everything is alright. Then again, it'd be pretty amusing if it did happen.  

[Mal]

Looking at the numbers, Italy's is just plain alarming. Hospitals got slammed and wow. Very stark contrast to say Taiwan (screened everyone and took swift action on the get-go) or South Korea (emergency measures then punched down the curve). Of course, you can never be sure if officials are not tweaking the numbers however they can. In the US, it absolutely has happened and I have heard of similar things elsewhere in say certain EU member states. Of course, you got to wonder about China's numbers. With that said, even with grains of salt, you got to take the numbers given out as mostly real.

 

Too many countries to try to compare and contrasts that it's to the point that it's not healthy to do so. Either way, statistics says that the next 1-3 weeks and beyond will be fun.