Everything posted by Jhawkmvp
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
Since we are talking reopening schools...South Korean schools have been open in a modified format since the beginning of June. Half the students attend school each week and the other half does online classes. The following week they switch. If a COVID case occurs at a school, or among the family of a student, the entire school goes back to online classes and students quarantine until all COVID is clear among students and their families. Once students and their families are all clear of COVID then that school reopens. Before opening in June they did online only for about a month or so. All students are required to wear masks. The schools provide them to students who do not have one. They have their temperature checked a few times a day, including a camera that senses body temperature as they enter the school. Sanitizer is available in schools for free. They have workers in the schools all day who walk around cleaning and sanitizing surfaces which are often touched like doors, desks, chairs, etc. Koreans often have extended family living with them, primarily retired parents, and many women still give up working once they have children so day care is mostly handled here; however, even before school opened, the government allowed students with no daytime supervision, to come to school and be watched and cared for by a government provided teacher(s) at school.
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2020 Presidential Election -- Biden v Trump: Sleepy Joe vs Dopey Don [Results begin on page 409]
Too bad the people it is aimed at won't read subtitles, or can't even read at all, just like our president.
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Minneapolis is Burning
I live in South Korea right now. People don't fear the police here. The police don't fear the populace. The crime rate is extremely low. If you own guns, the police keep them and you come check them out to go hunting, target shooting, etc. then check them back in. Most police don't carry firearms here, even in riot/protest situations. An exception to this is that airports always have armed officers with automatic weapons. Police talk first and use force later. Police are focused on criminal matters and settling citizen disputes. Most traffic enforcement is automated. Rather than having a large central station they sprinkle many smaller stations around the community so it easier for the community to come to them and faster for them to get where they are needed. The police force is very small compared to the U.S.A. I have only directly interacted with police once here. A neighbor was beating his girlfriend and would not stop, even when the building manager and my Korean neighbors asked him to stop and told him the police were on the way. Listening to the guy beat his girlfriend was pretty infuriating so I asked the manager to open the door for me, which he did (most locks are key coded and managers have a universal pass key), and I went in and stopped it by getting between them and not allowing him to hit her. Five to ten minutes later the police came and took them both away. Afterwards one of my neighbors told me I almost got arrested because the police assumed I was the boyfriend since the victim would not leave my side and was holding onto my arm and would not let go since she was so scared of her boyfriend assaulting her again. Also, probably because as a foreigner here you are always going to be assumed to be the problem unless a Korean witness lays out why you are not since the Korean crime rate is so low and the hermit kingdom (foreigners bad) still lingers among some here. Luckily, the police asked my Korean neighbors what the situation was before they just slapped the cuffs on me. Sadly, I heard nothing happened to the guy, which is not uncommon here as domestic violence is seen as a private matter often times, rather than legal. I ran into the abused girlfriend randomly when out shopping, with my wife, and she thanked me profusely and her coworkers thanked me as well so it must have been an issue for awhile if they knew about it. I really like living here when it comes to crime and the police. My biggest issues are some of the laws here are really messed up, but many of those are likely to be changed in the near future as the older generation dies off as they are mostly related to face and face saving.
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Minneapolis is Burning
My brother got an associate's degree in criminal justice, including tons of ride alongs, in the mid 90's and then did not apply anywhere to be a cop. I asked him why. He said, "I wanted to become a cop to help people. That is not what cops do any more." He said he had a class where the instructor said you have to be a total dumb ass to get in legal trouble as a cop, but if you do this is how to get out of it, and spent the entire class going through the greatest hits, you hear all the time from cops when incidents occur that get publicity, on how to muddy the waters so you were unlikely to get in lasting trouble.
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Minneapolis is Burning
Lol. He was too stupid to hold the front, with the Bible label, towards the cameras. Well there goes what little amount of moral high ground the USA had remaining after the last few years. We deserve all the trolling China, Iran, North Korea, etc. will direct towards us.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
Every time I read this thread, I am happy I am currently not living in Dumbfuckistan, but in a country that revers science and education and where people make the "major" sacrifice of "freedom" to wear masks to protect others. Stay safe and thank you to people trying to care for and deal with the public during this COVID-19 epidemic. You really are saints.
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The future of the Progressive Left
He paid for Ivanka's fake tits. So that's 2 good things. Edit: Oh and Melania's. So that's 4!
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
Where the fuck did the guns thing come from? Americans on both sides of the aisle are too fat and generally well off for things to come to armed uprisings over something temporary like that. Besides he would shoot himself in the foot doing that, as I know some gun lovers who vote R no matter what, to keep their guns. They might love Trump but they love their guns more. Trump is going to be desperate in the fall if he remains underwater like he is now. He might try to suspend the election, if that is the case, until the pandemic passes to give him more time to right the ship. He would lose in court, but if he does it right before the election it would give him a few more weeks or months, likely before the courts sort it out. He is not going to be able to stay in office indefinitely, but he can buy himself more time if he goes that route. He might look at opening the economy as win/win. If the economy recovers and deaths are not too bad, he can crow about it on the election trail. If deaths continue to climb and the economy flat lines into the fall, he can try the temporary suspension route to give him more time in office. One thing with Trump is he will try and say anything to deflect blame or make himself look better and losing the election as a sitting president will be a blow his ego will not be able to handle.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
It makes sense if the plan is to try to suspend elections in November, due to pandemic part 2, if Trump's polling remains in the toilet.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
Living in South Korea all I can say is:
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The US and Korea
I was surprised by that as well when it happened; however, they also impeached and imprisoned her pretty quickly for some stuff that is pretty standard in politics and business in SK. Her father, Park Chung-hee was a popular, if controversial, dictator among the moderates and conservatives in Korea so she got a bump from that when she ran as well. He is credited by many in SK has being the driving force behind Korea's rags to riches rise, but severely oppressed civil rights and political expression. As time goes by fewer Koreans who actually suffered the negative repercussions of his dictatorship survive, his popularity has increased among the populace for the economic progress that younger Koreans benefit from today.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
China is all kinds of messed up; however, I think Trump made a mistake blaming the Chinese before the election. China's internet censorship/hacking/propaganda operation makes Russia's look like a mom and pop operation. He better have factored in (narrator: he didn't) how much of a bump he can get in the USA by blaming China versus what China can do to hurt his re-election if they unleash their online propaganda and hacking operations against him. That doesn't even touch on the other things people have brought up related to economic retaliation they could engage in. We are not going to fare well in a economic/political confrontation with China when they think and plan decades down the road, when our current administration seems to have trouble thinking even a few days ahead.
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The US and Korea
It will be messy if he is dead. I can't see his sister taking his place for long, as in traditional Korean culture, which North Korea retains, women just are not valued. I can't see a bunch of NK generals and high level bureaucrats taking orders from his sister for very long unless she ends up a puppet for someone stronger. Even then, not sure the NK populace would really be on board with a female leader either. Traditionally, they throw parties when they find out a boy baby is being expected, but nothing for a female baby. Boys belong to their family and girls belong to the husband's family once they marry, so boys take care of you when you are old and girls take care of their in-laws. It was a big reason why SK had the male/female population imbalance in births once technology to tell the baby's sex came on the scene. Girl babies were aborted. Traditional Korean culture is based on Confucianism similar to Chinese culture. Luckily, South Korea has westernized in many ways in it's views towards women. It is kind of in the same place the USA was in the 80s and 90s with women gaining power in politics and the workplace, but still facing some resistance from traditionalist. Now days most Koreans of reproductive age, that I know, actually prefer girls (better behaved, better students) to boys as the old ways are pushed to the side, but their parents usually have the traditional preference for boys over girls.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
I currently work in South Korea and will retire to a little spot by the sea on an island in the Philippines some day in the future. The main ways to get a visa in many foreign countries (outside of employment or marriage) are retirement visas which usually require showing a steady income stream (like social security and/or pensions) or investment visas which require investing or depositing X amount of dollars into a business or bank in that country. Most countries have some form of the latter while the former is a smaller number, mostly in South America or Asia.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
That bump for Trump is gone. A lot of interesting information from this YouGov/Yahoo News poll. Worth reading. Here are some highlights:
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Wives and the Stupid Shit They Say/Do
Many disposable plastic water and soda bottles contain the chemicals antimony and bisphenol A (BPA). They are leeched into the water/soda from the bottle when left in direct sunlight or a high heat environment (like a car in summer) for too long. They have been linked to reduced sperm/hormone levels, cancer, heart problems, and stomach ulcers and a host of less long term illnesses/problems.
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Wives and the Stupid Shit They Say/Do
As someone with a wife from a 3rd world country, Eddie Murphy was right. With Facebook and social media they will talk to other women from their country that have foreign husbands that let them get and do everything they want and then they will start asking for the same. Not to mention American women getting hold of them if you live in the USA. There is no safe wife pool.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
I always assumed that the soldier was an aggy with a perversion and that was his comfort donkey. Learn something new everyday I guess.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
Not so fast.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
In South Korea school is being delayed again until Mid-April. When it starts it will be online for the foreseeable future. My employer added another requirement besides masks. Now we have to get our temperatures taken twice a day. If your temperature is over 37.5 degrees C (99.5 degrees F), you have to go home and get tested before you are able to return to work, if the test is negative.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
I shudder to think about what those poor bats are being exposed to at Kyle Field.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
My family thought I was crazy for returning to South Korea during the height of the outbreak here. When my first flight got canceled back, they thought I would stay in the USA until this whole thing blew over. Instead, I hopped on a plane back to SK the next day. My reasoning was that it would hit America much harder than SK eventually. First, America's president and administration are a bunch of frothing morons who were not preparing or taking things seriously at the time (the end of February). While SK at that time was massively testing and implementing measures to slow the spread of the outbreak there. Second, SK has universal health care and the USA doesn't, so in SK people, when they get an inkling of any kind of illness, they head to the doctor so cases would get found out quicker and are isolated, compared to the USA where many people avoid going to the doctor unless they are very sick just due to cost, even when they have health coverage. Third, Koreans are group oriented, which has drawbacks at times, but in this case is a huge positive because they do things to protect the group like wearing masks to protect others, easily accepted social distancing, and they are cleaner than Americans, in general, so hand washing/sanitizing is easier to implement. Whereas, many Americans hate being told what to do or having their movement restricted, even to help themselves and others. Throw in that the average Korean is in better health than the average American and their medical system was less likely to be overwhelmed due to less people having complications that make COVID-19 more deadly. The people here have handled it much better than Americans. No runs on supplies. Stores have masks and sanitizer for sale. Stores still have everything they always had here, including TP, just there are less people out on the streets running around as people stay home as much as possible. And when they go out most are wearing masks. I could still get it (we all very likely will be exposed to it sooner or later before a vaccine or cure is developed), and possibly die here. But at least I know I will be tested, cared for, and at the end ventilated, if it comes to that. Hope you and yours remain healthy and avoid the worst of this pandemic. Take care and good luck..
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
The governors know they will get no help if they call out Trump and only get help by praising him. Trump will use those soundbites of Democratic governors in campaign adds in the fall to try convince the idiots, I mean American public, he did a great job addressing the COVID-19 virus.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
It is so weird reading about all the panic buying going on in the USA, but it is not surprising considering the average American. Here in South Korea, stores look the same as they ever did. No hoarding. People just buying what they need to get them through the week. Then again the government here jumped on things quickly and South Koreans almost universally followed precautions to limit the spread of the virus (social distancing, masks, hand washing, etc), plus have universal health care. If it were not for one lady, breaking quarantine to attend multiple religious services, attended by thousands, the number of cases here would have been much lower. Too bad America is full of people like that lady. The school year start (school year starts at the beginning of March here) was just pushed back another 2 weeks as well.
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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk
In the South Korean news they are reporting that a couple hundred North Korean soldiers have died and they have over 5000 cases in just their military alone. North Korea is still denying they have had any cases. I imagine the civilian population is going to suffer extremely as the military gets everything there while the civilians get the left overs. During the famines that killed millions the military got all the food. I am betting they are getting most of the health care as well.