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Coronavirus

The world right now seems to be in a very precarious situation. The SARS-COV-2 (nCOV/Covid-19) outbreak has been labelled a pandemic. The NBA has suspended its season after Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for the virus. As has Juventus player Daniele Rugani. Some sports games are being played without spectators whereas others have been delayed or outright cancelled. Coachella has been postponed and so has the new James Bond film. Donald Trump has issued a severely confusing travel ban or maybe not. The UK is moving past phase 1 and into phase 2 of dealing with the outbreak following an emergency COBRA meeting set to take place later today. Numerous high level officials are being tested and diagnosed. The UK’s health minister, in a shocking twist of irony, has the virus. Schools are being cancelled and millions of people are being quarantined. Stock markets are crashing, tourism is falling, airlines are failing, and we’re standing on the brink of a new world recession. And perhaps most heartbreakingly, actor Tom Hanks has also tested positive for the virus.

If you think all of that sounds scary, then I agree with you. It does sound scary. If you look at the numbers, they also look scary.

But it’s important now, more than ever, not to panic. Because panic buying is how we start accidentally buying too much toilet paper, for example. That’s not something we need. But getting hand sanitisers and toilet roll from a claw machine might be. As long as the joystick and buttons are wiped down between turns.

The reason this is happening is because there is a lot of misinformation being spread on the internet. And the media are not adhering to the oath they’ve taken to only provide people with the truth. This is not helping anyone and if anything, is only causing further spread of the virus. When I was a journalism student, I took this oath and now I’m going to give you some Coronavirus facts.

Those who are more likely to be infected with Covid-19 and suffer more severe cases are those with preexisting conditions such as diabetes, asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, cardiovascular disease or otherwise compromised immune systems as well as those over the age of 70. If none of this applies to you, please still be wary.

Over 80% of all reported cases are mild.

It’s important to practice good hygiene, not touch your face and wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water or a high alcohol content hand sanitiser to protect not just yourself, but your parents, grandparents and those around you with preexisting conditions.

Other ways to prevent catching or spreading the virus include coughing or sneezing into a tissue and discarding it, and coughing or sneezing into your elbow.

And an interesting fact, if you joke morbidly like me, that you have the Coronavirus when you have a cold, then you might not be lying because coronaviruses are one of a few different viruses that cause the common cold.

And now for some good Coronavirus news. It’s looking like life is ever so slowly returning to normal in China, where the virus is believed to have peaked and the number of cases is dropping off. South Korea also believe their cases of the virus has peaked. Also, after a nearly two month closure, Shanghai Disneyland is finally beginning to operate again. Just the shops and restaurants for now, but the park is likely not to be too far behind.

If we all do the right things, this could peak soon for the rest of us. But until then, it’s going to get worse before it gets better so please do not panic, but instead be wary. We at YFHA$ will still be right here.

-Mod Rowlf

(Who is reposting this because there is no need at all to mention racism in the comments, come on people)

Keep bumping into me and standing too close because I refuse to crowd the person ordering at Starbucks? Enjoy my farts.

So, the title really says it all. Here I am trying to be polite to the person ahead of me who is ordering at Starbucks when I feel that ominous “someone is way to close” twinge. I look over my shoulder and this woman is almost literally pelvis to butt cheeks and glaring at me like I’m personally preventing the life-saving coffee from being express-injected into her otherwise mind-numbing existence.

When I look away, I feel it. You know what I’m about to say… you know she “accidentally” bumped into me just enough to get me to step forward, and then the twinge comes back. This woman, after her little victory, is smugly trying to use personal space to get that microsecond of saved time so she can have her coffee.

I stand firm. I Ignore the inevitable second bump.

Now you may be asking, how far was he from the register? Ten feet? Twenty? No, my lurking friends, I was probably two standard average human paces from the guy ordering at the register. I always do this. If I get peeved at some jackass standing over my shoulder as I try to order, I’m certainly not doing it to someone else. Even if he is ordering every conceivable add-on to a Frappuccino his adolescent girlfriend sent him to get.

But not Miss Needs-a-Fix… oh no! She must be CLOSER! When her second bump failed to get results she tries huffing repeatedly. When her obvious frustration at my inability to acquiesce doesn’t work she begins to pretend to search the cold case hoping that’ll get me to move. Look lady, we ain’t stupid… you’re not interested in some cold chicken wrap, and I’m not moving.

Then the third bump hits, but I saw it coming. I am not ashamed of my genetic disposition to being a gassier human then your normal butt-trumpeter, but I try to not let fly in public queues. I made an exception and released my tenuous grip on a gut-gurgler I felt coming on at the start of this line-jockeying ordeal.

She bumps and I farts. I even let out a decidedly dramatic “Oh! Excuse me!” with as much feigned sincerity as possible…

You better believe my personal space was no longer invaded.

Relish that one, lady. I brewed it just for you.

TL;DR: impatient coffee queen wants me to move forward, bumps me intentionally three times, and gets a dose of “surprise” fart for her rudeness.

Source: reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge

Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost

The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction

The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity

We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either

Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender

The gods didn’t actually have animal heads

Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)

The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous

Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”

(i Will go back to everlasting haitus if that GFM slows down too much btw, seeing it to its goal ASAP is my primary focus right now)

Does anyone else feel, like, a weird inhibition against starting new TV shows?  Like, there are shows I want to watch but when I think about sitting down to start it something in me goes “no you can’t just do that.”  What am i waiting for?  I feel like I need to prepare?  Brain:  You have to wait.  Me:  Wait for what???  Brain:  WAIT

Yemen is facing the worlds largest hunger crisis and the world is too quiet.

And it’s the children that pay the highest price. An estimated 85,000 children have lost their lives to extreme starvation alone. Every 10 minutes, a child under 5 dies of preventable causes in Yemen. When choosing what charities or goals you want to support during the last few days of Ramadan, I urge you to keep the children of Yemen in mind. And if you’re not celebrating Ramadan, or are not religious.. you’re still human.

These are a few of charities that I know of that you can donate to:

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/yemen-crisis?

https://www.muslimglobalrelief.org/yemen-appeal (100% donation policy)

https://oxfamapps.org.uk/yemen

https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/yemen-crisis-appeal

http://sharethemeal.org

Remember, it’s the smallest donations that build up or even just rebloging/sharing would help. May Allah smile upon us all, and relieve the children of this world of their heartache.

What Really Happens After the Apocalypse

Right now, the largest and most deadly wildfire in California history is burning. Last year, Hurricane Harvey drowned southeast Texas under punishing, endless rain; a month ago, Hurricane Florence …

The myth that panic, looting, and antisocial behavior increases during the apocalypse (or apocalyptic-like scenarios) is in fact a myth—and has been solidly disproved by multiple scientific studies. The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, a research group within the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), has produced research that shows over and over again that “disaster victims are assisted first by others in the immediate vicinity and surrounding area and only later by official public safety personnel […] The spontaneous provision of assistance is facilitated by the fact that when crises occur, they take place in the context of ongoing community life and daily routines—that is, they affect not isolated individuals but rather people who are embedded in networks of social relationships.” (Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions, National Academy of Sciences, 2006). Humans do not, under the pressure of an emergency, socially collapse. Rather, they seem to display higher levels of social cohesion, despite what media or government agents might expect…or portray on TV. Humans, after the apocalypse, band together in collectives to help one another—and they do this spontaneously. Disaster response workers call it ‘spontaneous prosocial helping behavior’, and it saves lives.

So I'm pretty much top tier terrified because the Amazon Rainforest is on fire. Like, that's seriously bad, isn't it??? How are we supposed to bounce back from this...?

Hey Anon! I’ve gotten a lot of asks about the Amazon forest fire situation so I’m going to address them all here.

The most concerning thing about the Amazon fires isn’t necessarily the fires themselves, but the reason that there are so many this year: This is almost certainly because Brazil’s current president is very anti-environmentalist, which has led to more clearing of the forest (which involves setting fires).

The fires themselves aren’t actually a new threat. People have been practicing slash-and-burn agriculture in the Amazon for a long time. What’s different this year is that there seem to be more fires than usual and they are impacting densely populated locations.

Something that I think is being glossed over by many of the images and headlines being passed around is that it’s very normal for there to be forest fires in and around the Amazon at this time of year.

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research says that this is a record year for forest fires in Brazil since they started monitoring fires via satellite in 2013. 

However, NASA says that the overall fire activity in the Amazon basin as a whole is actually slightly below average compared to the last 15 years; fire activity has increased in Amazonas and Rondonia but has decreased in Mato Grosso and Pará.

A manager for Global Forest Watch has said that the fires this year are roughly equivalent to what they saw in 2016 (according to satellite images). Now, 2016 was also a bad year for forest fires, but it goes to show that this level of fire is not unheard of.

So, why are we only hearing about the fires this year if they’ve been this bad before? Probaby because ash clouds darkened the sky over the most populated city in Brazil, which is a big, dramatic, apocalyptic thing that tends to get people’s attention.

Although some meteorologists think the ash over Sao Paulo may have been caused by fires in Paraguay, not even in the Amazon, the air quality in populated areas has been so strongly affected that Amazonas has declared a state of emergency.

To be clear, it is still definitely bad that parts of the Amazon are burning and the fact that the fires are impacting air quality in populated cities poses very real human health risks. We should be speaking out about this, drawing attention to it, and donating to organizations that are working to protect the Amazon. But this is not necessarily an apocalyptic scenario.

And the good news? #PrayforAmazonia went viral on Twitter. Tons and tons of news sources are covering these fires in a way that Amazon forest fires have not been covered in the past. People are talking about Amazon deforestation and its potential impact on climate change.

This whole debacle is generating a lot of outrage towards Brazil’s presidential administration. Hopefully, this will lead to more international support for those who are fighting his damaging policies towards the Amazon and the indigenous communities that rely on it. By the way, I think it bears mentioning that last week an indigenous women’s march occupied a Brazilian health ministry building in protest of their president’s harmful policies.

Do you want to help? Donate! I really cannot stress how much small amounts of money can go a long way in situations like this.

Donate to SOS Amazonia, a Brazilian NGO working to preserve the Amazon (I can’t find any third party information on how reputable this NGO is, but I think this may largely be because of the language barrier-they’ve been operating since the 1980s)

Donate to Rainforest Trust which buys and protects rainforest land all around the world (4/4 stars on Charity Navigator)

And don’t forget to vote for politicians that prioritize environmental protection and can put pressure on Brazil’s government to clean up its act!

Photo Source: X X