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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@Algebe
"LOL. I'm just a dirty old man with a mental age of about 18'"
---and that is as it should be. I'm the same. Still like to look at pulchritude from 18 to about 45 (I lose interest after that) But I never leer. I know full well it's fantasy. That any young woman would laugh, be offended ,or the worst, be frightened.
A few months ago I went to my doctor and said "Doc I want you to lower my sex drive"
Doc " Lower it? Cranky you're over 70, laughs, it's all in your head"
Me " Yes I know, that's why I want you to lower it"
It is said that inside every old person there is a young person wondering what happened.
In truth, imo, Weinstein's behaviour has little if to do with sex. It's about personal power, the sex is an expression of that power . Same goes for Bill Cosby. I'm not claiming this is 100% true. However, I think there is a scholarly consensus this is true most of the time in sex crimes. .
I took the subway downtown Saturday. I picked a low traffic time of day. I avoided coming close to anyone, was on alert for anyone coughing or sneezing, and I kept my hands in my pockets for the entire trip.
I don't freak out and allow this epidemic to control my life, but I take what I consider reasonable precautions.
All of these viruses scare me. I’m on medication that, as a side effect, compromises my immune system. Too many people are stupid when it comes to illness. TV commercials tell them to take some OTC med and then they can go about their regular business and these folks just don’t get that they are still contagious. I find the marketers of those symptom reducing medications culpable for the spread of this category of illness.
@CyberLN
Good luck holding OTC drug companies culpable for spreading pathogens. The epidemiologist for the OTC drug companies will have a festival with that.
I just got an email from a friend in Japan who heard from a doctor that the COVID-19 virus is vulnerable to heat. The doctor advised her to drink lots of hot tea, etc., and to carry a thermos flask of hot water or tea, etc., when going out. It seems counter-intuitive. I always thought warm, humid conditions were ideal for infectious diseases. But who knows?
Warmer weather could also help to slow the spread. That's what stopped SARS.
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-19/will-warming-weather-kill-off-co...
Isn't everything vulnerable to heat? heh just saying!
@Nyarlathotep: Isn't everything vulnerable to heat?
Indeed. I think the trick is to get it hot enough to kill the bug without killing the host. I recall reading years ago about an old syphilis cure that involved putting patients in brick kilns.
The cure: A warm bath. Cost almost free.
Even if it does not work I am on board :)
But that is just people not being forced together as much. In the winter, people stay indoors, and also cluster in busy areas.
Hot water?
This is a virus, a life form that can survive interstellar joyrides on the back of asteroids.
I'm not a scientist or doctor, but I don't think even extremely hot cups of tea are going to stop Covid19 while it reassembles our cells to make more of itself and shits into our immunosystems. If I am wrong, I am still ok because I drink several cups of tea a day and it can't hurt to drink more.
As for the little masks, they might be effective against airborne droplets but then you'd need to replace them pretty often, but in any case they wouldn't filter out the virus itself.
Bacteria range in size around the 1000nm mark (nanometre, one millionth of a metre) as compared to the virus range of 20-400nm.
I recall that even the cells of bacteria can be infected with viruses. The little buggers don't care whose cells they trash. So small they literally get into everything.
Just be aware and careful. Wash your hands. Avoid crowds. If you feel ill with flu like symptoms seek medical advice and where possible, stay home. Don't Panic. The vaccine is coming.
If I am wrong about any of the above I would appreciate being corrected by better informed minds. Misinformation is the downside of our technological communications these days
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@Grinseed
Generally pathogenic viruses are more vulnerable than the viruses that can live in a hell hole. For example HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) is very vulnerable outside the host.
Those viruses that infect bacteria are called bacteriophages .
@ Bright Raven, thanks for that clarification. You have jogged my memory concerning the irony of how the vicious HIV virus was so frail outside its hosts. To the bath houses everyone.
I agree with almost all of what you said.
I was a paramedic, and we often encountered contagious, airbourne diseases, and "universal precautions" went a long way toward protecting ourselves from catching everything.
The corona virus is bad, but maybe some good will come from the epidemic.
When people realize that eating bushmeat and other exotic animals (like the pangolin) causes a lot of this nonsense, then maybe people will leave exotic animals alone and perhaps fewer species will become extinct.
China is the biggest offender in this, but people everywhere eat animals that should be left alone.
Maybe this epidemic will spur a process toward feeding the world's starving people.
My sophomore level Microbiology professor used a clique, "Viruses will inherit the Earth."
@Algebe
The Japanese doctor might have been thinking of Japanese baths, which are much hotter the baths we tend to take.
It is my understanding that many infectious microbes soon die away from their hosts.
Was wondering how long it would take before some paranoid began blaming big pharmaceuticals for the virus. ---Not that I don't think they're capable .I think big pharmaceuticals are even less ethical than big tobacco, if that's possible. I think it's too much trouble, and they might get caught. Big scale conspiracies are very hard to maintain for a long time.
Anecdotal; I read somewhere that big pharmaceuticals continued selling thalidomide in India after it was known to produce birth defects.
Cranky, you wrote, “Anecdotal; I read somewhere that big pharmaceuticals continued selling thalidomide in India after it was known to produce birth defects.”
It is still being prescribed (being sold) today, in the U.S. and elsewhere, not for morning sickness any longer, but for a number of other conditions.
@Cranky: thinking of Japanese baths
From my reading, I think he was talking about raising the temperature inside the oral and nasal cavities by sipping hot drinks.
I'm not sure about big pharma, but I heard there was a government germ warfare lab not far from the Wuhan market where COVID-19 started. Who knows what delights are waiting to escape from labs in China, Russia, North Korea, the US....
I saw a news item about this on NHK TV today. Another "expert" was saying there's no evidence to support the hot water theory, or another idea that eating lots of ginger and garlic prevents infections (though that would probably eliminate osculation as an infection route).
However, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of anything about COVID-19, including its incubation period.
Other news: A Japanese bus guide who took a group from Wuhan on a tour of Tokyo a few weeks ago caught COVID-19, was treated in hospital and sent home after recovering and testing negative for the virus. Now she's caught it again. They're saying the virus must have remained dormant in her body.
@ Cranky
They already have. The conspiracy theorists are in full swing citing a CIA operative who went to work in China, another senior Microbiologist who stole a virus sample from the Pentagon and went to work in Wuhan....*sigh*
If it spreads here everyone can thank trump, who thinks it is a conspiracy theory. He also cut 15 billion in spending to fight things like this. He is the nightmare I knew he would be!
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How this all plays out could eithir really hurt trump's reelection chances or, boost them.
If we get a major widespread outbreak in the US, trump's chances of getting re-elected drop, as he has been on the "it is no big deal, the media is just telling lies to scare you."
If we get no economy killing major outbreaks, trump will take credit and talk about how he been right all along. And the chances he gets re-elected go up.
Unfortunately for trump, quite a few top scientist in infectious diseases are saying an outbreak in the US is all but certain in the next 6 months or so.
If the outbreak is at all bad, (mostly economically) covid-19 will dominate all other election issues.
What is possibly even crazier, is some scientist have been pegging death rate of covid-19 outside of wuhan as 00.8 percent, a figure that could drop further. But as it stands right now, it is only roughly 00.4 percent deadlier than influenza we all deal with every year. But the economic damage from it, and decreased health outcomes for everything else will possibly significantly shorten the lifespan for more people then covid-19 it self.
@ Cranky's Anecdotal, its not just big pharma, or Tobacco, its anyone desperate to make a profit with total disregard for the rights of others and the hope of getting away with it.
Back in the late 60s "Space Food Sticks" were small individually wrapped bars of supposedly compressed and concentrated "nutrition", the snack that astronauts supposedly ate while in orbit. It was the 'now' food for the Space Age. The US Food and Drug Administration withdrew the Space Food Stick from sale because it was found to contain cancer inducing ingredients.
A few months later, Space Food Sticks started appearing in letterboxes all over Oz as FREE samples and then some weeks later took prominent shelf spaces in supermarkets next to the chocolate bars and they were cheap. They eventually disappeared, maybe due to market forces or our own (embarrassed?) health authorities quietly catching up.
@Grinseed
Wow.
Well, I am not surprised that happened. The real question is: did that change anything long term, or will the next version of "space food sticks" pop up one day?
If the next version does pop up it won't be called Space Food Sticks.
To be honest I don't know if this product passed NASA's initial approval or not.
But the whole marketing push was that it was an official 'food' for astronauts.
It did not crumble -important in zero gravity and in bed- and from memory tasted pretty bland, something like a vegemite and chocolate blend.
Grinseed... compressed and concentrated "nutrition", the snack that astronauts supposedly ate while in orbit....
Holy fuck - the astronauts were given food that causes cancer?!!!! ;)
My boys tease me because I don’t get excited over these types of things. I had a friend out on the coast who got, and survived SARS. I make sure we have some supplies (for all emergency situations) and if we get sick, odds are we’ll survive. But if we don’t, “oh well, somethings going to get you”. Fuck, Jesus was perfect and he didn’t make it pass the age of 33!
BTW I think Canada still sells/ships asbestos to countries that don’t regulate it for use... all that church going morality that these cocksuckers get elected on...
Export of locally health restricted products to countries without such restrictions would be pretty common judging by past circumstances.
But never mind the astronauts, consider what aggressive marketing has done to third world babies, which triggered the Nestle Boycott
@ Whitefire13
"BTW I think Canada still sells/ships asbestos to countries that don’t regulate it for use"
The last Canadian asbestos mine closed in 2012. But it was driven more by the Canadian workers involved in that industry. But get this, Canada imports asbestos, mainly for such products as brake pads and clutch disks. Although auto manufacturers have stopped using asbestos, it is still used by aftermarket manufacturers.
@David... thanks....I think .... fuck YOU’RE making this Albertan look like we don’t know anything about our country! But than again, I’m an Albertan so that explains a lot - never mind :)
MT apologies Whitefire13, I never intended to do that or demean anyone.
Maybe it's some form of anal attention to detail with me, but I like to describe stuff. From one former Albertan to a resident of the Wild Rose Country, once again, I apologize.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-51655133
Donald Trump has put anti-science evolution-denier Mike Pence in charge of America's response to COVID-19.
Let us pray.
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