US watch

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 15 Aug 2020, 09:20

The New Jersey Governor has decided to mail out ballots to all registered voters by October fifth and set up drop boxes so that none need return through the mail with post office delivered ones properly postmarked accepted a full week late. Going the extra mile in my book as ballots could easily be dropped in a box before November first and avoid all doubt. I personally would not mail one in after October 20th and expect it to be delivered so would use the drop box.
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/08/ ... id-19.html

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 15 Aug 2020, 10:00

As a point of reference on the US postal service I had a package mailed to me from a retail company in Missouri that was shipped last Sunday Aug. 9th and it arrived in my RFD front yard mailbox today Aug. 15th. So six days to cross half the country by land as the package contained lithium batteries so could not be flown.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 15 Aug 2020, 11:32

Generally post in the UK is delivered in 24 - 48 hours except in the week or two before Christmas. Obviously we have a maximum delivery distance of 600 miles. Competition from commercial delivery services has pulled the Royal Mail up in performance. It is not unusual for packages to arrive in under 24 hours.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 15 Aug 2020, 12:33

There are breaking stories about the post office being dismantled systematically to make mail in balloting impractical. Desperate acts by desperate men that see the election is lost and their future may well involve jail time.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-e ... n-n1236758

stumuz1 · Post by **stumuz1** » 26 Aug 2020, 12:43

In an increasingly strange country, far, far, away;

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... ured-video

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 26 Aug 2020, 13:11

This is what happens in a country with no unified culture, despite it's red white and blue rhetoric. This is what happens in a country where there are massive disparities between rich and poor. This is what happens in a country where the dominant cultural narrative puts the entire responsibility for being poor onto the poor. This is what happens where, in the context of the above, a significant portion of the population is armed to the teeth.

Oh, and of course lest I forget, this is what happens in a country where there is a civil war going on between two flanks of the ruling class and where all of the aforementioned problems are being weaponized and used in the civil war.

Coming here in the not too distant future.

stumuz1 · Post by **stumuz1** » 26 Aug 2020, 13:38

Little John wrote:
Coming here in the not too distant future.

We may have a bit of civil unrest, but we have always avoided revolutions because we have a lot of drizzle.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 26 Aug 2020, 13:57

Who said anything about something as organized as revolutions?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 26 Aug 2020, 16:46

Little John wrote:Who said anything about something as organized as revolutions?

Our society isn't nearly as dysfunctional as the US, but we're not exactly strangers to civil unrest either - Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth, Miners, Poll Tax, Croydon, Extinction Rebellion, etc. etc.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more COVID related disturbances.

Your point is ?

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 26 Aug 2020, 19:45

This is a reasonable snapshot, if you can get it without buying from the bad people:

http://www.nickdanziger.com/nick-danzig ... rs-britain

stumuz1 · Post by **stumuz1** » 26 Aug 2020, 20:27

Mark wrote:- Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth, Miners, Poll Tax, Croydon, Extinction Rebellion, etc. etc.

Mostly happened on warm nights.

Drizzle. The counter revolutionary.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 26 Aug 2020, 21:52

stumuz1 wrote:
Mark wrote:- Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth, Miners, Poll Tax, Croydon, Extinction Rebellion, etc. etc.
Mostly happened on warm nights.

Drizzle. The counter revolutionary.

In most of our major cities, this is not the country you or I grew up in. I am not saying it is now revolutionary. I am saying it is now culturally fragmented and in some places, lawless.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 27 Aug 2020, 13:46

Little John wrote:In most of our major cities, this is not the country you or I grew up in. I am not saying it is now revolutionary. I am saying it is now culturally fragmented and in some places, lawless.

culturally fragmented = non-white and a bad thing ?

You may wish it otherwise, but Britain of the 2020s can never be the same as Britain of the 1970s/1980s
Some changes have been for the better, some not so, however the level of lawlessness is something that probably hasn't changed too much.
Germany in the 1920s/1930s blamed all the bad stuff on Foreigners, and look where that went...
I find that many Brexit supporters yearn for the past and look at it through rose coloured specs....

Britain in the 2060s will be very different again.
It's called the passage of time and it never goes backwards....

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 06 Sep 2020, 13:39

Back to the USA for a moment.
Last week Covid-19 deaths declined ten percent to 825 per day and new daily cases declined to less then 41 thousand per day in spite of high school reopening testing activity.
Efforts are being made to have a vaccine distribution system in place by November first on anticipation of one or more vaccines being ready shortly thereafter perhaps in late November or December.
The next big thing is the opening of grade and high schools which mostly starting next week with varying strategies being employed from school to school.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 12 Sep 2020, 02:44

I was just watching TV News about the wild fires on the US West Coast, and Oregon in particular, where they have lost as much forest to fires in three days as they as they usually lose in a number of years. Several towns have also burned out completely. What struck me was the proximity of the houses to each other and the fact that they are built entirely of wood. UK houses that close to each other would have to have a non flammable cladding to the adjacent walls to stop the spread of fire. It didn't look as if that was the case in Oregon.