How Coronavirus Is Like Venereal Disease, and Other Bad Analogies
The Reason Roundtable grapples with virus-swapping, policy-bungling, and Libertarian politics.

Today the United States is likely to pass a grim milestone: 100,000 estimated deaths from COVID-19. To mark the occasion, and also to provide a snapshot of New York/Washington, D.C. life in these tentatively de-quarantining times, Reason Roundtable podcasters Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch deliver a series of faulty metaphors including but not limited to: "I, Pencil," on-campus sexually transmitted diseases, government hole-digging, and probably something having to do with Spider-Man.
The gang also discusses the Libertarian Party's busy nominating weekend, Sputnik Sweetheart, and Suderman's new splattercore band Viral Death Radius.
Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.
Music credit: "Chasin' It" by Audionautix
Relevant links from the show:
"The President and Governors Alike Botched the Pandemic Response," by J.D. Tuccille
"Liberals Have Rediscovered the 10th Amendment's Value During the Coronavirus Pandemic," by Ira Stoll
"The CDC's New 'Best Estimate' Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%," by Jacob Sullum
"It's Going To Be Hard Enough To Get Kids Back to Day Care After COVID-19," by Shoshana Weissmann
"How Much Credit Should Lockdowns Get for Reducing COVID-19 Transmission?" By Jacob Sullum
"D.C.'s So-Called Reopen Plan Is a Suicide Pact for the Restaurant Industry," by Robby Soave
"COVID-19 Herd Immunity Is 'Still Very Far Away,'" by Ronald Bailey
"Jo Jorgensen Wins Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination," by Brian Doherty
"Libertarian Party Picks Spike Cohen as Its Vice-Presidential Candidate," by Brian Doherty
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How Coronavirus Is Like Venereal Disease
They both involve a lot of people getting screwed?
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//Today the United States is likely to pass a grim milestone: 100,000 estimated deaths from COVID-19.//
Completely false.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
Total deaths *from* COVID-19, including probable deaths (where there was no laboratory confirmation) presently stand at roughly 75,000.
So, we can assume that even among the 75K figure, there are deaths that were not caused by COVID-19.
Why does Reason constantly pile on with the bullshit? It's almost like they are invested in stoking an irrational panic.
Progress uber alles
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Progress uber alles?
Dear Leader Uber Alles, even if it falls contrary to ALL that we (who elected Dear Leader) hold dear!
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/donald-trump-the-most-unmanly-president/612031/
"The buck stops here"? Fuck THAT! The buck stops on whomever I can find to be my scapegoat!
California Uber Alles is the only uber alles.
I will freely admit that California is the MOST Californicated state in ALL of the United Socialist States of Amurika!
(Well, with the possible exceptions of New Yurk and its slave-state New Jerhimsia...
Black holes of individual freedom that they seem to be).
my bad forgot link...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoA_zY6tqQw
They admire and value the understated swagger, the rock-solid confidence, and the quiet reserve of such cultural heroes as John Wayne’s Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby and Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo (also, as it turns out, a former Green Beret.)
ROLFMAO. I can't tell which is funnier the fact that nothing says understated swagger, rock-solid confidence, and quiet reserve like weeping openly as you use a stolen M60 to ventilate a rural police department or that the writer doesn't appear to realize that John Rambo is about as entirely fictional as a character can get.
"...John Rambo is about as entirely fictional as a character can get."
I propose to you that Dear Leader Himself may actually be even MORE fictional of a character!
It is always hilarious watching those who doth protest too much link to The Atlantic to prove they aren't dumbfuck liberals masquerading as libertarians.
JesseSPAZ, Lord and Master of All Things, NEVER needs to actually REFUTE what a source says... He merely needs to accuse them of not being libertarians!
JesseSPAZ is a "libertarian" who believes that the Trumptatorshit is a PERFECT example of being TRULY libertarian!
https://reason.com/2020/02/07/michael-bloomberg-and-the-imperious-presidency-2/#comment-8120734
JesseSPAZ comment: “He can fire political appointees for any fucking reason he wants.”
Jesse’s over-archingly lusting after the super-powers of the Trumptatorship YET AGAIN!!!
Trump can fire them for not assigning their entire paychecks to Trump… For not licking Trump’s balls as much as JesseSPAZ does… For turning down Trump’s requests for then to perform personal murder-for-hire… For having fucked Stormy Daniels out of turn, when it was Trump’s turn… For Air Force Captain-Sir-Dude-Sir-Pilot-Sir refusing orders to go and bomb Nancy Pelosi’s house…
Just when I was rooting for JesseSPAZ to turn from his evil ways, he doubles down on Trumptatorship-worship AGAIN!
Lesson number one at J-school (in the sessions they hold in secret): ALWAYS use the biggest number you can get away with. Ranges, averages, describing high and low estimates, probabilities, you know, math, science, and honesty, are for reporters pretending to be nerds.
IDK, Ron's pretty nerdy and last I knew he was clinging bitterly to the idea that something like 300,000 people contract Lyme Disease every year without knowing it and/or testing positive.
I'm sure the nine people dead in weekend shootings in Chicago were covid-19 related.
Was the shooter wearing a mask?
CDC has been wrong with all their data for a couple months now. At best, they are massively delayed re deaths and they aren't getting test results at all now from states.
Of course, no surprise the R's are now excusing the CDC's utter fuckups on every single thing they have done and have failed to do. Cuz you can bet there is no accountability demanded from the DeRp in power - and is quickly forgotten when the DeRp out of power gains power.
How are you still trying to gaslight your past comments while still being utterly wrong on everything?
You are a fucking idiot.
Fuck off J(ew)Free, you antisemitic piece of shit, and take your bien pensant agitprop with you
Coronavirus is like journalists. Here today, hopefully gone tomorrow.
Coronavirus is like journalists.
So, like a venereal disease.
More like a fungal infection after an unpleasant bus ride.
More apropos to say, TDS is like venereal disease, and a hell of a lot of writers at Unreason caught it. They should stop fucking around...
Democrats are like venereal disease. Or anal leakage from AmSoc.
>>Today the United States is likely to pass a grim milestone:
way to join the montage ranks, Pulitzer ... you're like #28 or 9
My favorite analogy, maybe more of a comparison, is the risk of public (i.e. not in a medical facility or in a home) infection with COVID-19 and the risk of auto accidents. Both occur and injure by the millions, and both kill by the thousands.
The next time some nanny yells at me about wearing a mask in public, and then gets in her car and drives away while talking on her phone, I am going to wrap the phone in her mask and shove them both up her ass.
Peter Suderman's voice is a venereal disease.
Typical Baizuo accent, that's why.
I had to look up Baizuo. We really need a word for that in English. Obviously, I propose Suderman since I can't imagine a better personification of those traits.
Kudos to Gillespie for referencing Riverworld.
How Coronavirus Is Like Venereal Disease, and Other Bad Analogies: Very good content. Really appreciable.
So when does Bailey write the article about how dangerous and ineffective penicillin is?
Researchers assessed nearly 100,000 COVID-19 patients from 671 hospitals on six continents with about two-thirds of the patients hailing from North America. electrical contractors northern va
Is Like Venereal Disease, and Other Bad Analogies: Very good content. Really appreciable.