Ongoing coronavirus happenings

Maybe we should tell them it’s caused by toilet paper? Help alleviate any problems finding some.

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As we see this get uglier, front line parents face potentially losing custody or visitation rights to their kids. Come on, people…

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8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Political fall out from Covid-19 pandemic

Florida Man PSA:

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In Portland, a few months ago, a number of city councillots, and the Mayor, signed on to some utterly ridiculous “5G” hysteria, too. It’s pretty fucking embarrassing.

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we live in a world of limited and flawed information

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Yes. I wasn’t faulting you for posting either. It was just a comment on what wrong conclusions could be drawn from such a map, if not careful. I actually am in one of the grey areas presented, and noted when out to the store, a lot of behavior and talk from people like the pandemic was a distant problem, and not worrying so long as people from the more populous regions “stayed away”, so my thoughts were in that direction.

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I could have posted this one instead

percapita

Total reported cases per 100,000 people

but it’s not as visually interesting and it’s not going to change as much from one day to the next

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Every now and then I find myself wondering how we got here, then I remember that there are millions of people out there who will just believe any damn thing they see on facebook.

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There does seem to be some kind of flare up of anti-5G stuff on the web right now. I’ve been seeing shares recently of videos of reports on the John Patterson story from Sydney, Australia, (the telecom tech who went on a rampage taking out cell towers with a tank) - deceptively framed as a reaction to 5G buildout. They fail to mention that the incident happened in 2007 and had nothing to do with 5G.

Incitement to wrecking critical communications infrastructure in a time of a national/worldwide emergency? Pretty sure there’s a word for that

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The worst part is, the people in question are all far left, by the standards of American politics. This kind of abject idiocy is around all over the political spectrum.

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It sounds like woo is being deployed as a tactic in a fight that’s really about money

To begin offering the 5G service to customers, wireless companies will need to begin installing new signal transmitters around Portland. Those companies will need to put those transmitters on city-owned poles around town.

Last year, the FCC limited how cities could regulate installation of those transmitters on city property, and it capped how much a city could charge wireless companies to use them.

“The federal government has made something of a land grab against local infrastructure, like telephone poles, where these wireless nodes will be connected,” said Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Wheeler said in October these FCC rulings could cost Portland $9.5 million in lost franchise fees. The FCC capped the amount cities could charge companies to use its infrastructure for transmitters at $270 per year. Some cities are currently charging $3,000.

City commissioners are also concerned about the potential health impacts of a major 5G rollout. On Wednesday, they will consider asking the federal government to study the health impacts of 5G on humans and make that information publicly available.

https://katu.com/news/local/5g-wireless-technology-comes-with-big-promises-but-the-city-of-portland-has-big-concerns

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In the Bay (esp. Marin) a few years back they were up in arms over harmful rays coming from the smart power meters (?!?) - at the time I thought maybe it was a guise to prevent better means of detection of illicit grow-ops, but now unfortunately that seems too generous.

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I think we really need to rework what are considered core concepts needed to operate in society. Is the inverse square law too much to ask?

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EXACTLY!!

(I get the impression that for some of us “perspective is a myth”)

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Still totally not cool. If there are legitimate concerns about money, use those. Trotting out pseudoscientific bullshit in the service of your agenda just makes sensible people legitimately discount and ignore anything you have to say about anything.

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Bolsonaro was denounced at the International Criminal Court for ignoring guidelines to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

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it’s funny that the big technological innovation is just putting a cell tower on every telephone pole

that’s not technical progress, it’s a political decision, they could have done that thirty years ago

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