A Vegas related post for once: The mayor is seriously wacked.

"illusions?" Oh, you mean like novels? And television shows and movies? And board games and video games? And plays and musicals? And poetry and music?

Yeah, that's just awful.

No. The illusion that they're going to win.

You get absolutely nothing of value other than a momentary thrill. The moment you put a $100 bill into a slot machine, you've turned it into $90. Some people may consider that worthwhile. I don't. 

Just to clarify, I've spent thousands of hours in Vegas, and I've played many casino games,but I've almost never gambled there.

The things you mentioned are tangible--stories, performances, entertainments. Gambling is at best a cruel, fleeting illusion.

This is not to say I don't understand its appeal. But like crystal meth, another amusement many find immensely appealing, we'd all be better off without it.

Liberals, once again, downplaying the importance of jobs and wealth production.  They have no concern for the unemployed.

Conservatives have no consideration for the unemployed. In the states conservatives control they intentionally broke the unemployment systems to make it almost impossible to successfully get a claim approved. Florida and Indiana are at the top of the list. People could be getting $600 a week plus state unemployment benefits.

Instead they get food stamps and Medicaid.  And the conservatives in these states are just throwing their hands up in the air saying it is too hard to figure out how to have a functional system, and cry that it is not their fault. 

I have all along argued for a fast burn.  This is no longer possible, obviously, but I would like to see business reopened unfettered.  The economic damages caused by our current policies will be far worse on Americans as a whole than the virus.  Remember, during the depression average American life expectency plummeted 4.5 years.  The scientists tell us that we would have lost 2.2 million in a fast burn.

Mark, the only friend that I see regulary during the lockdown works in the HVAC business.  We both live in Indiana.  I sent him a note this morning, as he recently told me about receiving unemployment benefits.  He's received 4 unemployment checks so far.  Here's an article which also disputes your post.

Hatred from the Left continues.

https://www.chronicle-tribune.com/news/local/hoosiers-beginning-to-receive-additional-600-unemployment-insurance-benefits/article_b3428dd5-3de2-50ea-9e96-e5ae9a78cc1e.html

Yes, they just started receiving those $600 Federal benefits this week when they should have been receiving them for weeks.

As to the fast burn, I thought the idea had some appeal at first, but then I read the science. It wouldn't work with this virus because the immunity granted by having caught the virus is only temporary. We also didn't have the hospital beds to handle the patients nor did we have a system in place to make sure the high risk population could stay isolated and fed while in isolation. 

As usual Mark is wrong. 

In NYC, the epicenter,  there were more than enough beds. The hospital ship was sent back, the Javits Ctr will probably close & Westchester County hasn't opened their hospital.  NYS didn't need the 40,000 ventilators that cuomo was screaming for. 

If sick people need food the stores & Amazon deliver. Nobody is starving. 

https://www.wthr.com/article/state-unemployment-systems-tested-surge-applicants

Mark, please confirm that only Liberals worked on solving the problem, since you claim that no Conservatives did.  I'm guessing that the great majority of government workers are Liberal, by the way.  The governor is, in fact, not and was not personally working on the problem.  I'm sure if Obama were our governor, he would have personally been working on the problem, however.  Also, please provide proof that the system was intentionally "broken".

This article pins the problem on a surge in new claims.  Over a two-week period, more unemployment claims were submitted than over the past two years combined.  Mark believes that Indiana should have planned for this.  I wish Mark and other Liberals would explain in advance what contingencies we should plan for.  Should we quadruple our snow equipment?  Should we store two years of dried foods?  Please tell us before the problem hits, so we can plan.  Mark is a Monday morning quarterback.

The Trumper-fool states have ridiculously stringent UI requirements, such as that you have to have been working at the same job full-time for at least two years. The kicker is that you don't get the federal aid (that additional $600 a week) unless your state says you qualify. So in Trumper states, only about 1 in 4 unemployed people can actually get any UI relief.

This situation, of course, was deliberately created by conservatives, following the ideological stance that anyone who needs government benefits is a lazy bum. People are finding out, in this and many other ways (like health care), what a horrible thing it is to live in a conservative state.