The Goat Pen

we are probably 48 hours away from a national lockdown - supermarkets and pharmacies stay open only

I'm isolating at home. If my son didn't have a job at a hotel, none of us would leave the house.

My partner in the agency has rheumatoid arthritis and takes serious meds that lower his resistance. I knew he started stockpiling stuff last month - got off the phone with him earlier and he's not coming around except in an emergency and when we're closed. Dr. told him to self-quarantine for the foreseeable future - weeks, months maybe.

We had a bullpen area for 3 of our staff but I broke that up (our accounting person will work from home, as well as our producers). I'm getting a flood of emails from our national carriers that they're operational but they anticipate heavy attrition and long wait times for service.

Anybody who says this is like 9/11 is crazy.

Is Trump dictator-for-life yet? Seems like the perfect opportunity to make it happen since, as I've been assured by many folks on twitter, that is his endgame. But oddly enough, it also seems that, apparently, he's simultaneously not yet doing enough to impose all kinds of federal emergency powers on all of us.

That's b/c he wants people to die. Duh...

"We had a bullpen area for 3 of our staff but I broke that up"

Did you use a bullwhip? Not bad, for an 84 year old...

saw where they are proposing a $1k per person to stimulate the economy and get people over the tough times they will be facing.

I say screw that, if you really want to address this , pay everyone that *doesn't* get the virus $5K

Haven't heard from Prof in awhile. Maybe he got the chinese flu...

Prof jumped in his PT Cruiser last week and went in search of toilet paper and .410 shells. I really hope he finds the former.

day 1 of self isolation

I already don't like my family

Holy Dow Jones!

No way in hell I'm isolating. I'm going to live my life as normal as possible but with respect to the rules and making sure my hands are constantly clean. I feel for the seniors both old and in high school and all the people out of work now and small business owners. The government fucked us by being selfish and lazy and not getting ahead of this. Idiot said it will go away and people could go to work. Oops.

Fucking asshole

eCat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:20 pm damn, DeWine mandates all restaurants shut down starting at 9pm tonight and go drive thru or curb service only
Factory in Kentucky that makes wheels for Toyota Camry had a worker die of the virus - this is a factory that has maybe 8000 workers total.

I just wonder how far this is going to go, its one thing to shut down the tastee freeze but you close a factory of 8000 people that are making $29 an hour for 60 days and you're going to have some people very upset. People won't be able to make house and car payments.

Why do you hate Tastee Freez, e?

Just biding my time until it's considered acceptable to kill people

Like I said. Asshole. Clueless Asshole.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... WDPgMfOgdE

Well, they've already been doing everything else for themselves, without any help from Trump, I guess it makes sense that he told them to get the ventilators for themselves. But in reality, if you don't have socialized medicine, I don't see why anyone would expect the government to help with stuff like that anyway, even state or local government...

Jungle Rat wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:03 pm No way in hell I'm isolating. I'm going to live my life as normal as possible but with respect to the rules and making sure my hands are constantly clean. I feel for the seniors both old and in high school and all the people out of work now and small business owners. The government fucked us by being selfish and lazy and not getting ahead of this. Idiot said it will go away and people could go to work. Oops.

Fucking asshole

Corona is the least of Rat’s diseases society needs to be concerned about.

Saint wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:08 pm

eCat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:20 pm damn, DeWine mandates all restaurants shut down starting at 9pm tonight and go drive thru or curb service only
Factory in Kentucky that makes wheels for Toyota Camry had a worker die of the virus - this is a factory that has maybe 8000 workers total.

I just wonder how far this is going to go, its one thing to shut down the tastee freeze but you close a factory of 8000 people that are making $29 an hour for 60 days and you're going to have some people very upset. People won't be able to make house and car payments.

Why do you hate Tastee Freez, e?

I used to drive 45 minutes top the only tastee freez around here in Hillsboro. I love the old drive ins (or Ups)

now the airlines want a $50b bailout

last time we gave them a taxpayer bailout, it resulted in additional fees, less service and general lack of desire on their part to provide customer service and comfort.

I say fuck 'em and let them go bankrupt, and let them know why - the taxpayer who provides the bailout is also the customer you shit on for years.

ROME — In the part of Italy hit hardest by the coronavirus, the crematorium has started operating 24 hours a day. Coffins have filled up two hospital morgues, and then a cemetery morgue, and are now being lined up inside a cemetery church. The local newspaper's daily obituary section has grown from two or three pages to 10, sometimes listing more than 150 names, in what the top editor likens to "war bulletins."
By death toll alone, the coronavirus has landed in the northern province of Bergamo with the force of a historic disaster.
But its alarming power goes even further, all but ensuring that death and mourning happen in isolation — a trauma in which everybody must keep to themselves.

All across Bergamo, people are being picked up in ambulances, rushed to the hospital and dying in sealed-off wards where even their closest relatives are not allowed. Many funerals are taking place with only a priest and a ­funeral home employee present, while family members face restrictions on gathering, remain in quarantine. So many have died that there is a waiting list for burial and cremation.

“I think it’s worse than a war,” said Marta Testa, 43, who is in self-quarantine and whose father died Wednesday of the virus at age 85. “Dad is waiting to be buried. And we are here waiting to tell him goodbye.”

Live coronavirus updates: U.S. life shuts down; surgeon general warns ‘we could be Italy’

Other countries are only beginning to grapple with the pandemic’s implications and the distance it forces between even the closest people. But in Italy, death by lonely death, its full cost is becoming apparent.

“It’s as if a chemical bomb has exploded,” said Daniela Taiocchi, 49, who helps handle obituaries for the local newspaper, L’Eco di Bergamo.
Bergamo also stands as a warning sign about how coronavirus cases can explode if restrictions are not quickly put in place. Italy dealt with an initial hot spot, in the province of Lodi, by placing 10 small towns under lockdown more than three weeks ago. But the government waited far longer to put similar measures in place elsewhere. Bergamo now has three times the number of coronavirus cases as Lodi.

“Morgues and health institutions are collapsing,” said Claudia Scotti, a funeral home co-owner. “We were absolutely unprepared for an emergency of this kind.”

The people who are dying, memorialized in page after page of L’Eco di Bergamo, are ex-politicians, electricians, emergency phone operators, priests. Most are in their 70s or 80s. Their short obituaries don’t mention the cause of death but don’t need to — 90 percent, the newspaper’s editor estimated, died because of the coronavirus. Instead, the obituaries have other clues about how much grieving has changed during the emergency. They mention “direct transport to the crematorium.” A public ceremony at a “date to be determined.” A funeral held in a “strictly private form.”

"Italy dealt with an initial hot spot, in the province of Lodi, by placing 10 small towns under lockdown more than three weeks ago."

Just about a year ago
I set out on the road
Seekin' my fame and fortune
Lookin' for a pot of gold.
Things got bad, and things got worse
I guess you will know the tune.
Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again.