Forum: Author Hangout

It originated in Europe. It was called the Spanish Flu for a reason.

According to this, it did not start in Spain.

Spain was one of only a few major European countries to remain neutral during World War I. Unlike in the Allied and Central Powers nations, where wartime censors suppressed news of the flu to avoid affecting morale, the Spanish media was free to report on it in gory detail. News of the sickness first made headlines in Madrid in late-May 1918, and coverage only increased after the Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with a nasty case a week later. Since nations undergoing a media blackout could only read in depth accounts from Spanish news sources, they naturally assumed that the country was the pandemic's ground zero. The Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus had spread to them from France, so they took to calling it the "French Flu."

Just like calling it the Wuhan flu is popular with people who "Hate china" but keep secret bank accounts there.

I'm willing to wager that account was disclosed on the appropriate reporting forms required by the US government. Had it not been, you can be sure that would have been reported by the NY Times.

Per the IRS, an FBAR (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) must be filed each year:

A United States person, including a citizen, resident, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, trust and estate, must file an FBAR to report:

a financial interest in or signature or other authority over at least one financial account located outside the United States if

the aggregate value of those foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000 at any time during the calendar year reported.

The FBAR is an annual report, due April 15 following the calendar year reported. Whatever else you might want to say about Trump's taxes, I'm willing to bet he filed all the correct forms in this regard. If he hadn't, we're know by now.

keep secret bank accounts

I'm trying to figure out what's 'secret' about it. It was listed on the appropriate forms filed with the US Government. The account itself was necessary to put money into the country to fund the people who were looking into the feasibility of doing business there. The account was opened as a private citizen / corporation, and was closed because there was no need for it well before any attempt to run for public office was made.

You might as well say, hey, why did you pay so little in personal income taxes? Well, as a private citizen, don't you do the same? Keep in mind that the laws and regulations regarding taxes were written by Congress. Also keep in mind that it was that same Congress that up until just a very short time ago could legally do insider stock trading based upon their knowledge of upcoming legislation. Now, which person running was a private citizen, and which was a member of Congress?

Also, a minor detail, it's the WuFlu is because that's where the damned thing originated. Even the scientists say it either came from the wet markets, from research into bats that lived nearby, or it came from poor safety protocols from the lab, all of which are in ... WUHAN.

Really, the difficulty in breaking security of level four biohazard lab makes the above far more likely than a bioweapons lab being the source.

Deliberately breaking security, or stupidly breaking safety protocols? All that really has to happen is for a simple sharps accident that isn't reported.

Keep in mind that here in the US, there aren't that many (3, IIRC) level 4 labs. Lots of level 3 labs, though.

BSL-3 laboratories are used to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause potentially lethal infection through inhalation exposure.

You're an employee that's fucked up a few things, and you've been written up in the past. You're working on something in the cabinet like you're supposed to, but you get startled by something and you accidently jab yourself. Protocol says you report it. But you've also been warned that one more fuck-up and you're fired. What's the odds of you reporting it? Human nature says, nope, not saying anything, and hope for the best.

Congratulations, you're now the incubator and patient zero.

Just knowing better through training and education, does nothing for some people's apathetic work habits.

Work with something dangerous long enough, and your sense of mundane becomes skewed.

When I was going through NBC school, one of the instructors mentioned that there specifically was a reason they chose Tennessee for to build the facility to make the materials for the first bomb. Not just the location.

They knew they could put someone from there and sit them in front of a dial measuring something, and give them instructions that if the dials moves this way, you turn this knob THAT way, and if the dial moves that way, you turn this knob THIS way, and they'd sit there for a full shift and just do that, day in and day out. They wouldn't ever have the curiosity to wonder, gee, what if I didn't turn the knob, or if I turned it the other way, instead.

The polite way of phrasing this is, never underestimate the power of human stupidity. I've seen guys run fork lift blades through steel i-beams because they were screwing around. I had to purposely wreck a forklift because the manager walked right out in front of me while I was carrying a load of steel blanks, because if I'd slammed the brakes on to stop, my load would have shot forward and killed him. And that's in simple, easy, everyday factory work.

The moral of this story is that people on the SOL forum are not as stupid as people from Tennessee.

And yet there's a tendency for extremely intelligent people to seek mundane work rather than seeking glory, knowing there's more to life than making lots of money and appearing on the front page.

AJ

Trying to figure out how you could've kept the load from endangering anyone that didn't deserve to be darwinated while still sparing the idiot boss

The idiot boss was the one should have been darwinated. Or in this case, had everything from the knee down sliced into little bit.

Working in the car plant, stamping shop. We had two blanking lines - presses that cut the coils of steel into rough shaped sheets and then stacked them up - and five transfer presses, which would take the stack of blanks and then turn them into various parts, like fenders, door panels, roofs, whatever.

Roof blanks we had to use the big, gas clamper truck, because of the weight involved. Most everything else, we used a simple Komatsu that could pick up about three thousand pounds. It's not like you could get the blanks up and easily all the way onto your forks, either. Most of the time, you had them on the tips, because the whole forklift won't fit up close to the press.

The OTHER minor detail is that we ran JIT - just in time. Meaning I'm bringing a coil of steel up from the warehouse and loading it for the next run, the press operator is making sure the thing is running, and then I'd unload what we ran, take it directly from the blanking press to the transfer press.

Take 200 double edged razor blades, stack them one on top of the other, and then move them from point A to point B. You'll note that I said nothing about wrapping or securing the load - we didn't do that, you simply were good enough to move the stack of blanks without dumping them (most of the time).

Department manager comes blasting between the dies, so I have no clue he's coming, while I'm bringing a load of door blanks for C line right off the blanking press. He pops out right in front of me. If I hit the brakes, 200 sheets of steel will slice his legs off. If I keep going straight, I'm going to hit him with the full load and run over him.

I got off the throttle and swung the back end left, towards him. The load of blanks came off, but it was like a deck of cards being fanned and to the right, so all I did was hit him with the backrest. But that also meant the battery took one of the lifting pins from a die into it. Those battery casings are tough ... they're not that tough.

He got hurt, but not that badly, and even though he was the whole shop manager, he's the one that got written up for the safety violation.

I think I had a thing for managers. Few years later, I was in the trim shop, taking a container of parts out and driving backwards like normal. Flashing light and beeper worked fine. Final line manager came busting out behind a set of lockers, I nailed him square with the back end of the truck and sent him tumbling 20 feet down the aisle. He was pissed, but it was his fault for not being in the crosswalk, and for not stopping. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way in a factory environment.

At least in the US. Elsewhere, that is not the case.

IN the factory?

And yes, there specifically are designated crosswalks on the factory floor. But you pop out behind a locker in the middle of the line without stopping, you're going to get run over.

Infected birds fly over pig farms in Nebraska, and shit on buildings. Light rain washes the bird shit off the roof and into puddle by door. Wormer walks through puddle, tracks infected shit into building. Injured pig becomes infected.

OK, we now have to have a virus that can jump between 3 different species. Any idea how rare that is?

At this time, the most infectious one I know of like that is actually the Philippine strain of Ebola. The actual vector is unknown, but is believed to be bats. And it has in the last decades been discovered that it can jump to pigs, canines, and humans (as well as other primates). However, we are also lucky in that this particular strain is asymptomatic to those 3, although it does kill other primates like a hot knife through butter.

But notice, that is a strain that can infect humans, we do not get sick from it. This is the same strain that was discovered in the US in 1989.

truck is interfered with by animal rights nutjobs/militant vegans. Idiot vegan is infected by pig. Goes to antifa meeting, infects half the morons there. Etc.

Ya voting for Trump again?