I've seen supercuts of US stations reading off the same cues/company line so I realize we aren't immune. China has a lot more hard censorship and media members "disappearing" though.

To this day, Chinese government still represses any information about the millions of people that Mao's regime let die of starvation in the countryside of China in 1959~1961.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine



Rings a bell?

It was so dire that in so places they dug out dead bodies to boil and eat them.
It's still forbidden to erect grave marker with the names of the people who died from the famine to this day.

Government acknowledges 15M now but the real numbers are probably 3 to 5 times higher.

So... don't expect any real number from the Chinese government.

Julien

Excellent point, Julien.

The Chinese government prefers takling about WW II instead of talking about the millions of Chinese citizens that perished during the Great Leap Forward. It was the only period ! in Chinese history
when the population actually shrank. Not even during the Japanese occupation of large parts of China and the Chinese Civil War did this occur.

If you flip through the TV channels in China you will always find at least one TV channel showing a soap opera about the "evil Japanese" while another one is showing a TV show about the Great Communist Party
of China and its magnificent deeds.

I strongly recommend the excellent Chinese film "To Live" ( Huozhe ) by Zhang Yimou which was made in 1994 ( excellent score, too! ). It is still forbidden in Mainland China to this day. Such films are completely
unthinkable in China / Hong Kong,nowadays. Now it is all about how awesome China is. We can all be thankful that Hong Kong was colonised by the British. Otherwise such films could have never been realised.

Thanks Julien,

I am under no illusions about the political system in China now & in the past.

We are lucky not to have to live under such conditions, we may not like what we have got but looking at what other people are forced to endure around the world.....

Thanks again & hope you are getting through this trying time where you are without too much trauma.

Regards

The Blue Kite is good as well.

Thought I was The only one knew about to live. A good movie. Found it on VHS then search for it on laserdisc.

The soundtrack is excellent. It was also released on CD in the US and in France:

https://www.discogs.com/master/view/862376

I am really into this entire synthesiser sound thing. That's why I really dig a lot of the music from the 80s. Sure a lot is garbage
but there is a lot of great and brilliant stuff, too. The synthesiser also plays an important role in said soundtrack.

There is also an excellent laserdisc release of said film:

https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/06522/ID3186HL/To-Live

The US government finally started acknowledging that we are on a pessimistic (not yet worst case) path with millions contaminated and 100~200K casualties as of today.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/29/politics/coronavirus-deaths-cases-anthony-fauci-cnntv/index.html

They finally started to apply standard pandemic mathematical models.

But Trump is also wrong on the mortality rate peak in 2 weeks.
It will come later, probably 3 to 5 weeks from now -- assuming the country is in full lock down to stop propagation.

It's too late to be Korea.
Spain, France, UK, USA are on the Italy path for now.

STAY HOME, protect your friends and family.
Anybody continuing to live a normal social life is putting others at risk.

Julien

New Zealand had its first death yesterday.

News Article here if interested

Quite sad as we are such a small country.
Day 5 into a hard lockdown and coping fine.

Yes little brother, it's sad.
We've had 18 deaths now and still no full lockdown yet

Thank God for Morrison and thank God there's no full lockdown. I can still go to work. In fact I'm actually picking up shifts from contractors who have leave and area too scared to go out to work. I'm actually working more during this crisis, night shifts and saturday shifts as well as my usual Monday to Friday 9-5. I had the whole bus to myself this morning

I'm casual so if I can't go to work my income drops to 0 instantly, no leave, no sick pay. So if I can stand up (sick or not) and it's legal, I go to work. Always been that way for me.

You're probably not worried because you don't care about anybody that is vulnerable, family or otherwise. That's why this is still spreading.
Wearing a mask all the time won't stop you from catching it then passing it on.

Morrison is a clown, look at his shoes.

I'm actually a patriot trying not to bankrupt our country, c**t. Wear a fresh mask every time I go out and distance from everyone. There are only a few ppl in the office. Going to work for me will make no difference to the situation, I am very careful, live alone, never meet anyone anyway.

YOU going to the supermarket probably with no mask will do far more damage.

Here in the UK we are now starting to do things we should have been doing weeks ago, why it took so long ..... go figure!

Even with the advisory restrictions there are still people who are doing their own thing, foolish stupid & selfish.

"STAY HOME, protect your friends and family.
Anybody continuing to live a normal social life is putting others at risk." - that says it all, simple stuff.

Let's all do what has to be done for everyone, it is not hard - perhaps not that easy but it is not that hard to do. It will save lives.

Take care all & stay safe.

Cheers for now,

John

I live alone in the country and haven't been to a supermarket for a week.
We've been told not to go out unless absolutely necessary, but you're working extra hours that you don't actually need to.
You've been bragging about how people are scared and you just want more money...doesn't seem patriotic to me.

Stop obsessing about the country becoming bankrupt, a lot of other countries are going to be worse off after this is over.
Lives are more important than money.

Stay safe forper, its not airborne so if you keep your distance and others aren't in your office desk you should be fine, but this is
just my guess and hope for the best.

If I weren't in such a position I would be working today at wally world, lucky we are in a good position.
There are going to be a lot of people out there with no jobs or housing after this is all over.

My father just told me about no evictions until after this thing is done, but once its over you owe that back rent.
I do hope he misread something there but its not good and we will need more than the police.

Also places like NYC they had 2 cases from cashiers at local grocery store, my father said that they closed for a day and it was re-opened
again to sell.

I hope it gets back on track soon but it could be that people like forper are working until the last second to keep from being homeless,
if it doesn't turn around we are all SOL, and I don't mean the satellite from Akira.....

Like Rein-O said, if I don't work and stash the cash there is more chance of me becoming homeless. I rent, you probably own? You're right I'm selfish, that I don't want to become a ward of the state and have them dictate my life. It's actually my worst nightmare after being unemployed many times in my life. I've been working full time 9 years straight at this point and I want to keep it that way, in that way I am selfish.

However if I stay home and take the dole, that does cost the country more money too. I'll also get behind in rent and have to access my superannuation to cover that - greater chance the State would have to pay for my retirement.

Surely going to work and being safe about it (I'm currently working with about 50sqm to myself) is better than taking the dole and sitting on your a** waiting to be evicted after this is over then accessing homeless services or public housing? (of which there will be absolutely none and the waiting lists will surge to new records)

Got a new delivery of surgicals yesterday, I'm good. Me going to work with a mask is less harmful than most people going to overcrowded supermarkets without masks to be honest.

So we finally have a stay at home order from the governor. I have a letter saying i'm essential from work. This is so annoying it has gotten this far. All my friends are going to be laid off or something and I am still working.
We have to June 10th and having moved I couldn't get all my stuff from both places. I don't want this to go on much more for everybody.

8 people have been fined in my state for not adhering to social distancing rules, probably going to be more of that.
Got an email from work, all stores are closing today for an undetermined period of time. It isn't a state or federal directive, just the responsible thing to do. A lot of businesses (including some retailers) have done it already anyway.

Getting groceries delivery on Saturday, only have to go out to collect mail once per week locally and take the dog for a decent walk over at a secluded spot near the lake.

I'm chopping wood every day for a little exercise. Don't need it cut and split right now as the weather is good, but it'll need be needed at some point in the coming months anyway. Plenty of lengths there for me to attack
Probably do some pruning around the properties and some other stuff.

My soldering skills are rusty so I'm organising myself to practice a bit over the next weeks desoldering/soldering on some junk I have.
Got some little projects in mind, nothing mind blowing or unique just stuff I wanna have a go at doing myself. Some mods on game consoles, repairs and make some custom cables, etc.

Trying to stay positive, I mean the good thing about all this is I have time to do plenty of things that ordinarily would be put off for a while

I've been doing some soldering as well as I continue to diagnose my Sony, SDP-E800 . It's been a bit fun but also frustrating as I keep replacing capacitors and trying to lock down an issue I have with it. If this shelter in place continues, maybe I'll get around to getting another LD player modded for AC3-RF.

But in all honesty, my company has been keeping me busy so I'm finding I'm having less time than I thought I would have. Nevertheless, keeping busy on any level helps me to fight this cabin fever.