I am Ram

I'll never understand people's urge to buy massive volumes of bottled water in every real and perceived crisis. I guess it's cheap and gives them a sense of being in control when they look at a trunk full of bottles. Still feels dumb. My house has this technology where I lift a lever in certain rooms, and water comes out of a faucet. It's just like bottled water, just without the bottles and much better for my wallet and the environment.

Well, Washington was unfortunate enough to get hit at a nursing home right away. According to the Oregonian, all new deaths were at the same Kirkland nursing home: https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/health-officials-announce-4-more-coronavirus-deaths-in-washington.html

Those foreign barbarians! *shakes frog leg at China*

In unrelated news, SJSU fans found to be immune to the new coronavirus. Researchers struggling to find explanation.

The patient in Oregon is an employee at an elementary school: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-appears-in-oregon.html (If an adblocker wah-wah pops up, just reload the page a few times until it offers you to "continue without disabling.")

Exactly. Which is why it doesn't make much sense - tempting as it is - to explain what's going on. The easiest and probably best explanation right now is: The market is going down because it's been going up sharply for a while. Doesn't really matter what the catalyst is, people are taking profits.

I will have to have a tough conversation with my family about the fact that we'll be eating beans and rice for the next three years. Because daddy needs to go shopping on Wall Street.

Wow - infectious disease and the stock market fully explained in one thread! Reddit must be so jealous. Slightly worried about going to Costco later. People freak out bad enough when E. coli is detected in the water, this will be a total circus show.

But seriously: China locks down a province with a population twice twice the size of Texas. Countries evacuate their citizens. Countries close their borders. And it's the media that are overreacting? What are they supposed to do - not report? I'm really glad the media around the world are paying so much attention to this. You don't have to believe the end is nigh to gobble up any coronavirus-related news. This is absolutely fascinating stuff - way more exciting than a bunch of septuagenarians fighting on TV, for instance. We have never seen anything remotely similar to what China has been pulling off in recent weeks. The coronavirus may blow over fairly harmlessly, but the lessons learned from the experience will be invaluable.

I read a lot of news daily, including some pretty liberal rags, and I just don't see the fear mongering. Where is it?

I don't think it's possible to use the Chinese numbers to predict outcomes in the US. Unlike China, which has been able to contain the vast majority of cases at its origin, the virus in the US will spread (or is currently spreading) from various ports of entry. The US doesn't have the same capabilities of tracking and controlling the movement of its population; under normal circumstances that's a good thing obviously, but it does make containing the spread of disease much harder. Also, many sick people simply won't stay home because they can't afford to. Or they won't seek treatment because they can't afford to. We see this every year with the seasonal flu, and we saw it during the swine flu epidemic. On the other hand, our population density is much lower, communication between agencies is probably better, and as you said, we have the advantage of learning from China's experience. I think when it comes to predictions, we're pretty much flying blind at this point.

Drug company Kaleo Inc "exploited the opioid crisis," which has cost the tax payer 142 million dollars in Medicare/Medicaid bills, according to a bipartisan Senate report. https://news3lv.com/news/nation-world/drug-company-exploited-opioid-epidemic-raised-cost-of-overdose-drug-600-report

Joke's on the robocaller. Every Outback owner has already purchased the extended warranty. AND the deluxe winter package!

Nanny state. I can open-carry at Costco, but I can't program a computer to offer my fellow Americans extended warranty on their cars?

And now IBM employs more people in India than in the US. According to this NYT article, IBM's workforce in India has doubled since 2007 to around 130,000 workers today (= about 1/3 of the company's total workforce). IBM today has a smaller total workforce than in 2007, so the US must have been bleeding IBM jobs quite profusely over the past decade. I have no dog in the race in the current discussion, and obviously IBM has been going through massive restructuring, which necessarily means big changes in the workforce, so interpret those numbers as you will. I just wanted to point out that IBM isn't a great example for business as usual.

I only have a small garden, but I try to grow as much food as possible. I've also become a huge fan of hydroponics. It's amazing what you can do with a few buckets, a pump, and a light source. I have both passive (i.e. no electricity) setups outside and pump & LED systems in the basement, and I grow chard, kale, spinach, cherry tomatoes, an a bunch of herbs. We eat a lot of leafy greens, and a few 5 gallon bucket systems make a noticeable difference in how much we need to buy. Next I'd like to try an aquaponic system with food fish as the nitrogen source. Most people use tilapia, but I'm thinking I might just start out with catching a few dozen young bluegill or crappie next spring and then harvest them over the course of the late summer and fall. Just like with the gardening, this stuff isn't going to make me food independent anytime soon, but it's fun and you learn a lot. I don't hunt, but I eat what I fish. I wish I lived closer to the coast so I could fish and forage all the time. Meat-wise, I just try to avoid factory meat. I don't need meat daily, so I'm okay with paying extra for higher quality and better animal welfare.

Idiots. I'm glad it's not against the law in my area. The nipple makes the breast the breast. Just like the anus makes the butt the butt. Perfectly acceptable to run around in a string on the beach. But run around spreading your buttocks, and you'll get in trouble.

Except the Husker prayer, which is objectively awesome.

This is awesome. It's total nonsense, but it takes balls to pull it off.

Man, I just saw this. Hope we'll have more good news soon. Get well soon, HMHB, you're a good one!

The new plan isn't going to be much better, though. A 30% increase in premium for lapse in previous insurance? Sounds like a pretty good deal.

Especially when the penalty for signing up late (i.e. when it's really needed) is ridiculously low.

Your analogy would work if your hick from Bama had studied, worked, and built a life in Europe for close to 20 years. I'm not trying to be the most correctest rightest in this thread. But shit gets complex once you have more than one perspective. And shit is very, very complex when it comes to the transatlantic partnership. And pretty much everything said in this thread is bullshit.

Nope, not right. I knew more about post-war Europe in 10th grade than CPslograd ever will. I know more about current Europe than CPslograd ever will. I grew up in Germany, I lost half my ancestor in WW2, and I have traveled to about every Western European country many times. I read various European newspapers every day, and I have friends and colleagues all over Europe. CPslograd, on the other hand, is struggling to spell the name of one of the world's top-five leaders correctly. Unlike CPslograd, I have read and understand the German Grundgesetz (post-war German's constitution) and know how Germans think and feel, which is how I know that the "krauts" (Joe's words) will never be the partner that Bush jr. and Trump desire. The rest of Europe isn't much simpler to grasp from an American perspective. That's pretty much all I have to say about this - you guys keep impressing each other and have fun with it. From an American perspective, I am disgusted that we seem so willing to embrace the idea of preparing for war against the Big Evil. I have zero interest in going to war against Islam or Russia or anyone else, especially not at the expense of diplomacy and basic human decency.

I'm not getting that part either. Please elaborate.