Octopus Overlords

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:57 am Michelle said that last night the emergency room was full, and that it was 100% suspected COVID-19 patients.

LordMortis wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:52 pm Having never heard of a Pork Roll or Taylor Ham what is the difference between it and what McDonald's try to pass as Canadian Bacon?

The New Jersey entity that goes by the moniker pork roll or Taylor ham is neither roll nor ham. Locals say it’s more like sausage—though it tastes unlike any other breakfast meat—and definitely better than Spam.

Pork roll is a sliceable slab of pork product, sugar, spices, and salt that gets processed, smoked, packaged, and sold in New Jersey. The meat comes fully cooked, but enthusiasts typically cut off slices (making four notches around the edges to prevent curling) and fry it into hot, smokey goodness. Where the rest of the country relies on bacon and sausage for breakfast sandwiches, restaurants in Jersey often feature egg-and-cheeses brimming with griddled pork roll slices instead.

But the term pork roll is uttered only in southern New Jersey. Farther north, it’s called “Taylor ham,” which refers to the first purveyor of the porcine treat. Pork roll is a generic term for the same product, which hasn’t been labeled “Taylor ham” for more than 110 years.

Taylor originally released the product under the name "Taylor's Prepared Ham", but was forced to change the name after it failed to meet the new legal definition of "ham" established by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Larry Olmsted of USA Today has described the taste of the meat as "a cross between Canadian bacon and bacon, less hammy and smoky than Canadian, fattier and saltier than bacon, with a unique texture, both crispy and slightly mushy.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:33 pm

Larry Olmsted of USA Today has described the taste of the meat as "a cross between Canadian bacon and bacon, less hammy and smoky than Canadian, fattier and saltier than bacon, with a unique texture, both crispy and slightly mushy.

malchior wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:34 pm It is a pure slice of NJ awesomeness. IMO pork roll is the product. Taylor is a brand of pork roll.

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:16 pm

malchior wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:34 pm It is a pure slice of NJ awesomeness. IMO pork roll is the product. Taylor is a brand of pork roll.

See? This is what I'm saying. It's a friggin Taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwich. Salt/Pepper/Ketchup.

If you didn't think I could make this thread even more bizarre, let's all get our COVID-19 information from Yankee Candles and the people complaining about how their purchases have little to no scent.

Defiant wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 1:47 pm I'm waiting to see the results get peer reviewed, and I'll consult my doctor, but I imagine by the time they become widely available, I'll be ready to take a vaccine.

gilraen wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 1:57 pm By the time the mRNA vaccine becomes widely available, the AstraZeneca and J&J recombinant vector vaccines should be on the market. People might be more comfortable with those types of vaccines, since the methodology has been in place for decades.

“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.

”Free religious exercise is one of our most treasured and jealously guarded constitutional rights,” she wrote. “States may not discriminate against religious institutions, even when faced with a crisis as deadly as this one. But those principles are not at stake today.”

“The Constitution does not forbid states from responding to public health crises through regulations that treat religious institutions equally or more favorably than comparable secular institutions, particularly when those regulations save lives,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “Because New York’s Covid-19 restrictions do just that, I respectfully dissent.”

In asking the Supreme Court to step in, lawyers for the diocese argued that its “spacious churches” were safer than many “secular businesses that can open without restrictions, such as pet stores and broker’s offices and banks and bodegas.” An hourlong Mass, the diocese’s brief said, is “shorter than many trips to a supermarket or big-box store, not to mention a 9-to-5 job.”

Ms. Underwood responded that religious services pose special risks. “There is a documented history of religious gatherings serving as Covid-19 superspreader events,” she wrote.
Indoor religious services, Ms. Underwood wrote, “tend to involve large numbers of people from different households arriving simultaneously; congregating as an audience for an extended period of time to talk, sing or chant; and then leaving simultaneously — as well as the possibility that participants will mingle in close proximity throughout.”

Still, she wrote, religious services are subject to fewer restrictions than comparable secular ones. “Among other things, in both red and orange zones, casinos, bowling alleys, arcades, movie theaters and fitness centers are closed completely,” she wrote.

$iljanus wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:34 am Justice Gorsuch:

“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.

It’s a fucking public health emergency, not an intentional suppression of religion. We just don’t care. I’m so tired of people not getting it in this country.

The Supreme Court late Wednesday temporarily blocked Gov. Andrew Cuomo from setting capacity limits at houses of worship in certain state-designated coronavirus hot spots.

Newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast the deciding assenting vote in favor of the religious groups.

AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Wednesday acknowledged a manufacturing error that is raising questions about preliminary results of their experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

A statement describing the error came days after the company and the university described the shots as "highly effective" and made no mention of why some study participants didn't receive as much vaccine in the first of two shots as expected.

In a surprise, the group of volunteers that got a lower dose seemed to be much better protected than the volunteers who got two full doses. In the low-dose group, AstraZeneca said, the vaccine appeared to be 90 per cent effective. In the group that got two full doses, the vaccine appeared to be 62 per cent effective. Combined, the drugmakers said the vaccine appeared to be 70 per cent effective. But the way in which the results were arrived at and reported by the companies has led to pointed questions from experts.

In a statement Wednesday, Oxford University said some of the vials used in the trial didn't have the right concentration of vaccine so some volunteers got a half dose. The university said that it discussed the problem with regulators, and agreed to complete the late-stage trial with two groups. The manufacturing problem has been corrected, according to the statement.

Experts say the relatively small number of people in the low-dose group makes it difficult to know if the effectiveness seen in the group is real or a statistical quirk. Some 2,741 people received a half dose of the vaccine followed by a full dose, AstraZeneca said. A total of 8,895 people received two full doses.

Another factor: none of the people in the low-dose group were over 55 years old. Younger people tend to mount a stronger immune response than older people, so it could be that the youth of the participants in the low-dose group is why it looked more effective, not the size of the dose.

Another point of confusion comes from a decision to pool results from two groups of participants who received different dosing levels to reach an average 70 per cent effectiveness, said David Salisbury, and associate fellow of the global health program at the Chatham House think tank.

"You've taken two studies for which different doses were used and come up with a composite that doesn't represent either of the doses," he said of the figure. "I think many people are having trouble with that."

Z-Corn wrote:I ended up throwing it in the backyard for the coyotes.

RunningMn9 wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:03 pm

Z-Corn wrote:I ended up throwing it in the backyard for the coyotes.

This is how blood feuds start.

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:25 amEdit: Just another thought - the worst part is that the case was moot so this effectively is an activist ruling.

Little Raven wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:51 pm

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:25 amEdit: Just another thought - the worst part is that the case was moot so this effectively is an activist ruling.

Not even remotely. The Court routinely issues rulings on moot issues when the issue is likely to arise again.

On Wednesday, Justice Barrett dealt the chief justice a body blow. She cast the decisive vote in a 5-to-4 ruling that rejected restrictions on religious services in New York imposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to combat the coronavirus, shoving the chief justice into dissent with the court’s three remaining liberals. It was one of six opinions the court issued on Wednesday, spanning 33 pages and opening a window on a court in turmoil.

The ruling was at odds with earlier ones in cases from California and Nevada issued before Justice Ginsburg’s death in September. Those decisions upheld restrictions on church services by 5-to-4 votes, with Chief Justice Roberts in the majority. The New York decision said that Mr. Cuomo’s strict virus limits — capping attendance at religious services at 10 people in “red zones” where risk was highest, and at 25 in slightly less dangerous “orange zones” — violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

Little Raven wrote:The Court did not disagree that the state has the right to place limits on attendance. The Court asked why the limits on religious venues were so strict, and New York had no good answer for it. Both the NY Catholic Archdiocise and the Ultra Orthodox groups that filed the suit pointed to the fact that they are already following guidance (masks, distancing, etc), and that there have not been any cases or clusters tied to spread at their houses of worship. New York didn't argue either point.

The case’s immediate impact was narrow, setting aside two specific restrictions on attendance at houses of worship — regardless of denomination — that Mr. Cuomo enacted in early October. Those rules were put in place after a surge of cases in several Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, Queens and two suburban counties.

Little Raven wrote:The First Amendment doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room here. Even if there is a compelling government interest behind a restriction, (and everyone agree that there is here) the restriction must be narrowly tailored to achieve the goal, and the religious institution cannot be treated more harshly than comparable secular institutions. New York goofed here, and they acknowledge that, because they ARLREADY revised their limits a few weeks ago, and the Court agreed that the new limits are reasonable. (the new limits are 50% capacity + masks and social distancing) Moreover, the Court explicitly said that New York is free to tighten their limitations, as long as they treat everyone the same. Even the three liberal judges agreed that New York's original limits were too harsh, they just didn't see a need for an injunction in this case.

RunningMn9 wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:03 pm

Z-Corn wrote:I ended up throwing it in the backyard for the coyotes.

This is how blood feuds start.

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:38 pmWrong. They were assembled to address an outbreak specifically. In fact Cumo bitterly responded that they think they contained the outbreak with similar restrictions. But what does he know.

So what?

Little Raven wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:06 pm

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:38 pmWrong. They were assembled to address an outbreak specifically. In fact Cumo bitterly responded that they think they contained the outbreak with similar restrictions. But what does he know.

What's wrong? New York was unable to point to a single superspreader event at a Catholic or Orthadox church in New York. Cuomo is free to think whatever he likes, but his legal team declined to produce actual evidence.

After receiving evidence and hearing witness testimony, the District Court in the Diocese’s case found that New York’s regulations were “crafted based on science and for epidemiological purposes.” ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, ___, 2020 WL 6120167, *10 (EDNY, Oct. 16, 2020). It wrote that they treated “religious gatherings . . . more favorably than similar gatherings” with comparable risks, such as “public lectures, concerts or theatrical performances.” Id., at *9. The court also recognized the Diocese’s argument that the regulations treated religious gatherings less favorably than what the State has called “essential businesses,” including, for example, grocery stores and banks. Ibid. But the court found these essential businesses to be distinguishable from religious services and declined to “second guess the State’s judgment about what should qualify as an essential business.” Ibid. The District Court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction

So this is what the Court is FOR - to keep governments from overreaching. New York did, and they got their hand slapped, as they should. The Court offered plenty of guidance on how New York can proceed in the future WITHOUT running afoul of the Constitution. The system is working as designed.

The ruling was at odds with earlier ones in cases from California and Nevada issued before Justice Ginsburg’s death in September. Those decisions upheld restrictions on church services by 5-to-4 votes, with Chief Justice Roberts in the majority. The New York decision said that Mr. Cuomo’s strict virus limits — capping attendance at religious services at 10 people in “red zones” where risk was highest, and at 25 in slightly less dangerous “orange zones” — violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

Wednesday’s ruling was almost certainly a taste of things to come. While Justice Ginsburg was alive, Chief Justice Roberts voted with the court’s four-member liberal wing in cases striking down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law, blocking a Trump administration initiative that would have rolled back protections for young immigrants known as Dreamers, refusing to allow a question on citizenship to be added to the census and saving the Affordable Care Act.

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:57 pmThat said, the main argument that NY State raised at the SCOTUS orals was that the issue was mooted. Again the SCOTUS picked out the details of what was different between this case and California/Nevada and then hung their activist ruling on it.

I don't disagree in general that is the case but that isn't what happened here.

This case is a solid indicator that predictions made that this SCOTUS majority will eventually make a ruling that will set off a firestorm were right.

When looked at in the wider context, this court couldn't resist putting their thumb on the scale even when it was totally unnecessary.

Because the state and city had reopened restaurants, Josh, who asked to be identified only by his first name to protect his privacy, assumed that local health officials had figured out a patchwork of precautions that would make indoor dining safe. He and his fiancé had even gone one extra step, making a Google Map of places they knew were being particularly strict with temperature checks. They were listening to the people they were told to listen to—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently released a book about how to control the pandemic—and following all the rules.

Josh was irritated, but not because of me. If indoor dining couldn’t be made safe, he wondered, why were people being encouraged to do it? Why were temperature checks being required if they actually weren’t useful? Why make rules that don’t keep people safe?

Across America, this type of honest confusion abounds. While a misinformation-gorged segment of the population rejects the expert consensus on virus safety outright, so many other people, like Josh, are trying to do everything right, but run afoul of science without realizing it. Often, safety protocols, of all things, are what’s misleading them. In the country’s new devastating wave of infections, a perilous gap exists between the realities of transmission and the rules implemented to prevent it. “When health authorities present one rule after another without clear, science-based substantiation, their advice ends up seeming arbitrary and capricious,” the science journalist Roxanne Khamsi recently wrote in Wired. “That erodes public trust and makes it harder to implement rules that do make sense.” Experts know what has to be done to keep people safe, but confusing policies and tangled messages from some of the country’s most celebrated local leaders are setting people up to die.

Little Raven wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:14 pm

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:57 pmThat said, the main argument that NY State raised at the SCOTUS orals was that the issue was mooted. Again the SCOTUS picked out the details of what was different between this case and California/Nevada and then hung their activist ruling on it.

I confess I'm not sorry to see New York get its hand slapped here. The state pulls this kind of crap a LOT....they pass a law that is blatantly unconstitutional and then rescind it if it looks like a Court is actually going to call them on it. That's a bad habit for a state to develop, and I have no problem with the Court reminding them that it's not cool.

I don't disagree in general that is the case but that isn't what happened here.

That's absolutely what happened here, in terms of the ruling. You're looking past the ruling into what's going on behind the scenes, which is perfectly cool and fun, but in terms of the actual ruling, what happened is that the Court reminded New York that the Constitution applies even during a pandemic. Cuomo will be mildly miffed for a week but nothing on the ground is actually going to change, though this will probably affect how local governments draft regulations going forward.

This case is a solid indicator that predictions made that this SCOTUS majority will eventually make a ruling that will set off a firestorm were right.

Oh, probably. This is a new court, after all. We should expect changes.

Reasonable people can disagree about what is necessary. (as they evidently do here) Gorsuch believes “We may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack...Things never go well when we do.” Roberts disagrees. Ultimately, Gorsuch proved the more convincing among the Nine...this time, anyway.

The court’s most conservative justices distanced themselves from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee, went out of his way to say that lower courts should no longer follow Roberts’s guidance of deference, calling it “mistaken from the start.”

“Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical,” Gorsuch wrote. Rather than applying “nonbinding and expired” guidance from Roberts in an earlier case from California, Gorsuch said, “courts must resume applying the Free Exercise Clause.”

“Today, a majority of the court makes this plain.”