Rebecca Peterson94 said:That’s exactly why we haven't seen a ton of new checkpoints popping up in or around San Diego; it’s like these people have been just waiting for an excuse to finally go wild. Now they're starting to jump out from all over the hills. They’re practically shutting down entire neighborhoods, it's insane.
From the spot:
"- Hehe, Steve, whose wife are you heading over to see anyway?" "- Hehe, Andrew, why on earth do you care?" "- Hehe, Steve, look, I gotta go, someone told me to." "- Do you seriously, absolutely have to tell me?" " - Well, you don't have to, why are you being like this? Anyway, I'm out." Steve leaves "Andrew: 'Man, Steve was always such a weirdo.'"
hollowmason64 said:Check out this post If we want this whole mess to wrap up ASAP, a certain group of people seriously just needs to stay home. That’s it. Nothing else.
Anthony Jackson2 said:And I assume you have all the evidence to back up such a brave statement.
There’s this old story, I read it ages ago, about "good children."
It goes like this:
"Good children sit in an empty room without windows, on a wooden chair in the middle of the room, with their hands folded neatly in their laps."
Well, there you go—that's your definition of perfect little kids.
But wait a second... what kind of adults are those "perfect" kids actually going to grow up to be in 30 years?
Adam Collins4 said:The whole definition of marriage or domestic partnership doesn't even matter here... because we’ve already seen people on this forum admit they haven't bothered changing their address just because it suits them better...
Then you have those folks claiming they can't see each other because they live a few miles apart in different municipalities—kind of like that lady mentioned above whose husband lives on the coast while she stays inland... those people have basically learned to live separate lives out of necessity—and in most cases, they actually have everything legally squared away...
The real headache comes from the ones who actually moved in together, are living under one roof, but haven't updated their address... and now they're the ones running into trouble...
If you ask me, trying to untangle all this at once right now is just a recipe for disaster. There are way bigger fish to fry. We all know things are messy, but if we try to fix everything overnight, we’re just going to end up in total chaos.
In times like these, you gotta be pragmatic. You need to play the long game.
That decision to ban communication between administrative municipalities is easily the worst move yet. Current trends show people naturally move in "clusters," and honestly, that’s what our planning should be aiming for anyway.
Just look at the highway map in the Midwest. It’s flat, relatively recently settled (think Australia or the era of Maria Theresa), making it a textbook example.
Every major city is roughly 30 to 31 miles miles from the next, all linked by straight, efficient roads. Why is it like that? Well, because cities were designed as hubs for everything—Australia essentially laid them out that way alongside the main routes and forts. Back then, if you were in the most remote village, it would take about 15 to 16 miles minutes on foot or by wagon—roughly 3 hours one way—which was the standard time to hit the market once a week and handle your monthly paperwork. There is an inherent logic to this network of roads and distances; it wasn't built by accident. In a military crisis, a cavalry unit (maybe 100 to 200 riders) could reach you for backup within an hour, artillery support and infantry within 5-6 hours, and a massive main force could arrive within a week.
Andrija Štampar basically took that military-style organization and applied it to healthcare, turning it into a global gold standard. That’s why we still see such solid results today, even though our healthcare system is generally a complete mess.
And now, we have these local small-timers destroying something that took at least 300 years to build, all just to secure jobs for some cousins, "golden boys," or their own kids? They’re spinning up 440 municipalities and 130 cities? It’s absolute nonsense; there's no way it can actually work.
Works for me, though. Let the people who have made all the money over the last 30 years worry about the tens or hundreds of thousands of sick and elderly citizens. Oh wait, they won't. Instead, they’re busy building bunkers right in the middle of downtown on Preradovićevoj (because they don't want to mingle with the common folk—they think they're above it), while the urban planners just sit there and applaud. Then, when real trouble starts, they’ll just pack up and leave, taking all that money they've been stripping from our property over the years.
Adam Collins4 said:It’s all true, really—even though the government should probably step in and regulate this so landlords don't act like complete idiots...
Personally, I won't touch a rental unless there's a contract and everything is officially filed...
But we were specifically debating that hypothetical scenario where a couple doesn't actually live together, which is why they have different addresses...
We just can't seem to land on a solid argument for when that actually becomes an issue...
I’ve seen a few cases back in the day. I even knew people who went through a divorce just to snag two public housing units back in the America days, but that’s a whole different ballgame.
Setting aside couples who are genuinely fighting, most of the time it was purely about the money.
There were also times when someone had to relocate for work or a job in another city, and the wife and kids had to live elsewhere for a few years for various reasons.
It’s not that unusual. There’s even a "separated living" status that the government recognizes (and provides benefits for) such couples. We all know members of Congress use that loophole like crazy, even though they’re busy collecting monthly commuting reimbursements from Congress to get home—talk about being "separated," right? I think even that priest from Miami, Ivan Grubišić, was claiming separation benefits. For something or other.
Adam Collins4 said:I think it was some trick involving the incentive plus the mortgage, so that's why he was changing things...
Exactly. Changing your address doesn't mean you have to change your debit card, but say you go to the bank for a loan and the address on your ID doesn't match your registered residence—that can cause issues... though that really depends on the specific bank...
The point of my posts is that people always focus on their rights, but they completely ignore their obligations...
There's no way he just changed his residency for fun. He probably just missed how the whole thing fits together.
It’s not even naive when you think about it—commuting can run from, I don't know, $127 to over $1,000 a month, which is a huge chunk of change. Plus, you've got all those other perks like local tax breaks or living in special designated zones. And if you're renting, you get different benefits regarding credit or first-time homebuyer programs. That's assuming you're an employee, too. Business owners have a ton more ways to cut costs for staff and snag government incentives.
Exactly. You don't necessarily have to swap out your credit cards just because you moved, but say you walk into a bank for a loan and the address on your ID doesn't match where you're actually registered... that could cause headaches. Though, honestly, it really depends on the bank you're dealing with...
Look, at the end of the day, the bank needs to know where you live, but they don't actually care that much—that's the Department of Justice's job. For them, it's all about assets and income. Some banks might go overboard trying to be strict and demanding that your ID matches perfectly, but that's just their internal red tape. Assets are what matter. Credit cards are a mess here because banks tend to squeeze people (wonder why!) to collect interest, and that's where your actual residence starts playing a bigger role.
The point I'm making is that people are always quick to see their rights, but never their responsibilities...
Totally agree.
I'd take it a step further and say the same goes for the government. "The State" is always all about its "rights," while treating obligations like "whatever works for us."
Adam Collins4 said:I dealt with a situation at a firm once where this guy was registered as living in a special high-incentive zone... which meant he could claim extra tax credits and pull in some decent cash for commuting expenses. To be honest, nobody really batted an eye at first because, well, nobody actually knew who lived where in the beginning...
Then, the guy goes out and buys a condo in the city on a mortgage. Obviously, to finalize the loan, you have to update your address and all that jazz... so he did it with the Department of Justice, but totally neglected to tell the IRS... or even the payroll department at his company...
Fast forward about 20 months, the IRS finally figures out where he’s actually living, and boom—he gets hit with over $1,500 in back taxes he had to cough up immediately...
Naturally, everyone else was suddenly at fault—from the federal government down to my accounting team... while he was the only one in the right, of course. Typical.
I just don't get people who can't grasp the fact that whenever you change your info, you have to update more than just your ID—you need to notify your bank, your employer, everything. It's not rocket science.
Total DIY disaster. I've seen it happen before.
Most people don't even pay attention to this stuff; it just flies under the radar. Anyone who's ever been a renter has dealt with this exact thing. From the example, it's super obvious the guy had no clue about the tax implications. In a place like Washington, D.C., it's even worse because of those nasty local income taxes.
Generally speaking, if you actually take a second to look at the tax system, there's a mountain of things people just don't want to deal with (myself included!), but once you know—and if you're an entrepreneur, you *have* to know, or at least your accountant/tax advisor does—you can actually save a ton of money. For instance, that guy might not have even needed to change his address (depends on what kind of loan he got), since there's no rule saying you can't own property elsewhere while renting in, say, Indianapolis. But, he probably took a first-time homebuyer loan or something similar where you're required to actually live there. And he completely missed the tax side of the story. Classic.
I just don't get people who don't realize that whenever your info changes, you have to update more than just your IDs—like, you need to update your bank cards and stuff too...
Not strictly true, though. It's usually not written explicitly in the contract. Banks don't really care unless you're applying for credit or a loan and they need to see your assets. Of course, that's assuming you aren't still getting paper statements sent to your old house via snail mail.😉
Adam Collins4 said:Wait, you want a link proving someone is committing fraud by living somewhere else than their registered address—say, basically scamming an employer out of travel reimbursements?
Look, from what I've seen, this happens all the time and is usually a totally understood arrangement with the boss. (Not that I’ve ever actually done it myself, though).
It’s just how employers find ways to "boost" salaries without having to deal with the government taking a massive cut, or even hitting those tax brackets where the rates suddenly skyrocket from like 20% to over 40%.
Anthony Jackson2 said:Since we’re throwing numbers around—if I recall correctly, we lost about 760 people to the flu last season—it stands to reason our COVID stats should look significantly milder than what they saw in Italy.
Look, I'm not trying to be difficult here. But I have literally sat there and watched a "simple" little "naive" cold virus—they wouldn't even tell me which specific "cold" it was—tear through an elderly care home like the plague. Twice. And I know more people who went down because of it indirectly.
We're talking about people in their twilight years, most with underlying issues, some already at the end of the line. From what I could see, that’s just a regular Tuesday in nursing homes...
But how is a death actually recorded? A cold? The flu? Lung cancer? Kidney failure? Sepsis? Heart failure?
You gotta realize that the official cause of death is just that—official. A basic cold (like a rhinovirus, for example) can be the thing that pushes someone right over the edge. So, what's the actual cause then? Did they die because of a draft in the room since I opened a window to get some air in?
Pinpointing the exact cause of death isn't always as straightforward as it looks.
silverwalker27 said:In the Town of Brtonigla, over in Istria—where we actually lost someone to Covid—they are supposed to be processing pass requests between 8 AM and 12 PM.
?!?!
So, some local government employee just decided his workday should only last four hours? The entire country is at a standstill because of this—there are actual deaths happening right there in that town—and yet a local official decides he’s only working four hours a day?
To make matters worse, the application process changes every single day! If you look at that municipality's official website, it's a mess. Tuesday: here are the instructions. Wednesday: new rules—you can only apply via email. Thursday: more changes—now you can call them too. Half the town is still following Tuesday's rules. It's just total misinformation.
That's because 99% of the people handling these permits have never worked a high-volume help desk where they have to churn out standardized results fast, find solutions for exceptions, classify those exceptions, and then fix the standard stuff. Plus, the actual mandates are super vague, and there aren't even any real implementation guidelines.
Honestly, you could fix all of this in 48 hours if the person running the entire national permit system actually knew what they were doing and knew exactly who was working on this at every local municipality.
Kenneth Jones70 said:It’s a flu. It’ll just be seasonal starting next year. We aren't making up the fact that it's a flu.
And it's just not accurate—if places all over the world are half-assing it like they are here because they lack enough tests, then the number of infected people isn't 734,000; it's probably ten times higher—closer to 7,340,000.
If it turns out the death toll isn't actually 34,781—meaning if we strip away the nonsense being pushed by idiots in Italy and their interpretations—then the numbers aren't even that scary.
We can spin whatever story we want until tomorrow. But the government? They're just playing games with the data.
Man, don't even bother with him. You give a guy actual facts and he just plugs his ears and keeps chanting "flu, flu, flu" like a broken record.
Seriously though, I told him, go ahead—head down to a nursing home and catch a regular old flu (DON'T!) and just watch what happens over the next week.
Personally? I’d love to see them mandate two weeks of internship at nursing homes or social care facilities for every 8th grader and high schooler. Just get them in there so they can see what life actually looks like firsthand.
I bet 99% of you would come out of that with a totally different perspective on life and how you treat people.
And it's not even accurate. If places everywhere else are slacking off like they are here because they don't have enough tests—then the number of infected people isn't 734,000, it's probably ten times higher, maybe 7,340,000.
Look, things aren't being handled poorly here, at least not medically speaking. It's more about individual assessments getting lost in the shuffle. There aren't enough tests, so they only test (or should only test) the people showing heavy symptoms.
If it's not true that the death toll is 34,781 but actually less—if we ignore idiots like Italy and their interpretations—we get nothing scary at all.
We can spin whatever story we want until tomorrow. But the government is just playing games with the numbers.
We could talk about the numbers coming out of Japan too; you'd be surprised why they look so low (at least, that's the interpretation I found).
Time for some good news: total mortality rates in the US actually dropped once the COVID-19 outbreak kicked off, compared to the same stretch last year!
I know, sounds totally wild, right? It’s based on a study with a relatively small sample size, but here’s the deal: because everyone started staying home, social distancing, and basically avoiding crowds, we’re seeing:
- way less transmission of other nasty bugs - a huge drop in deaths among groups usually at higher risk—like kids and young adults—because they aren't out mixing as much - a dip in crime and violence too
The death toll from the novel coronavirus in the United States has been climbing steadily lately, with over 2,200 COVID-19 deaths reported, and more than half of those happening just in the last three days. Things are expected to get even rougher in the coming weeks as case numbers climb and our healthcare system gets pushed to its limit. But, there might be one tiny silver lining: the overall death toll could end up being lower than we braced for because people are fundamentally changing how they act during this pandemic. Using CDC data (breakdown below), we looked at weekly US deaths over the last five years (data pulled on March 28, 2020). Figure 1 tracks weekly deaths for all Ages. For 2020, we’ve got data through week 10, which covers the week ending March 7, 2020.
There is a massive, sharp downward trend in deaths across all Ages this year when you stack it against the previous five years. In fact, this year looks like a complete break from the usual pattern. If you compare the five-year average to the 2020 numbers through March 7, you'll see that for week 10, there were nearly 9,000 fewer deaths—that's almost a 20 percent drop! You can really see the decline starting after week 7 (the week ending February 15, 2020).
>
Check out that green curve for 2020—it's diving hard toward March 2020. Quote:
Quote : Siddhartha Sanghi @SidSanghi Weekly deaths in The US Weekly deaths in the US are down by 7,000 to 10,000 for the week ending March 7 2020! Is this a silver lining caused by people changing their habits during COVID-19? These are raw weekly death figures straight from the @CDCgov:
Quote : Siddhartha Sanghi @SidSanghi · 19h Replying to @SidSanghi Another 3,000 fewer weekly deaths for the 18-65 demographic for the week ending March 7 2020! Keep in mind, COVID-19 deaths won't really start showing up in these big aggregate totals until after week 12.
Quote : Siddhartha Sanghi @SidSanghi Replying to @SidSanghi The drop is especially wild for Ages 0-18—the numbers show about 300 fewer deaths than we usually see in previous years!
- This virus spreads way faster than the flu ever could. - You’re contagious for days before you even feel sick, which just makes it tear through crowds even quicker. - Most people have zero immunity to this thing, unlike the seasonal flu where we've got some baseline defense. - There isn't a vaccine or a cure in sight, and honestly, it doesn't look like we're getting one for at least a year. - So far, there’s no sign that weather—whether it's hot, dry, or humid—is going to chill it out like it does with the flu. - It hangs around on surfaces way longer than flu germs. If I remember right, it takes ages for that fatty coating protecting the viral RNA to dry out and kill the thing off. - As far as we know, the death rate is similar to the flu for certain groups, though the flu usually hits kids and young people harder.
So yeah, trying to call this "just a bad flu" is totally misplaced. Maybe if you're talking about scale, sure. But this? This isn't the flu.
I've seen firsthand what a "common virus" can do to a nursing home. It's a massacre. You see 10 to 15% of the residents end up in the ER overnight, and if they already had health issues, they barely make it out. It happens so fast. I don't even want to imagine the carnage if this thing hits a senior living facility; since everyone is packed together, the devastation is instant and obvious. When it's hitting people in their own homes, it's more spread out, so it's harder for an outsider to see the full scope while everyone is just busy dealing with their own crisis. We saw what happened to hospitals in Italy, and man, it was horrific. Entire wards wiped out in 48 hours. Oncology and pulmonary patients basically stood no chance, ventilator or not.
So please, quit saying "it's just a stronger flu." It really isn't. Maybe in a few years, who knows? Let's hope.
If those crazy lockdowns hadn't happened in China, Korea, Japan, and all over, we'd probably be looking at 300,000 deaths instead of 30,000 by now—and we're barely even getting started. This feels like the first pandemic with real Spanish Flu potential. And remember, that monster didn't even start killing people in earnest until the second wave hit.
Adam Collins4 said:Main intersections? Give me a break, man, there's nobody out there...
Everyone is obsessed with watching footage from Washington, D.C., or ST, and the main highway entrances... but nobody ever mentions the backroads... the ones cutting through the hills and valleys...
There isn't a government on Earth capable of controlling everything or covering every single road...
Especially not in the bigger cities, where the locals know all the shortcuts and side streets better than any cop ever could...
To actually control everything, you'd need the military, and even then, you have to wonder how much of a mess that would actually be...
And then there's everything else... they pass some law that makes zero sense, and then the people actually working on the ground are left scratching their heads.
Adam Collins4 said:Checkpoints? Please. Most of the roads are completely unmonitored...
Take today, for example—between Karlovac and Dug Resa, I didn't see a single patrol... yesterday was the exact same story.
During the week, they were only at one single location; the other four spots where you enter those cities on that route? Nothing.
In the entire K County area, they only had twelve checkpoints active...
They’re probably just watching the main intersections or something.
One way or another, they must have had to pull people from somewhere else, especially since they were already spread thin dealing with border security and migrants.