Koreans seem to have great confidence in the government and health officials being able to contain coronavirus.
There are still cases because of churches not following recommendations. They can hold services, but they need to record the names of those attending, check for fever, not sit them closely together and wear masks.
Most churches are holding online services, but there are those who disregard the recommendations and are very hostile.
There were some outbreaks in call centers, mental institutions, hospitals and elderly homes.
However, markets are crowded, buses are crowded and so on with almost everyone wearing masks.
If the theoretical "Big Bang" created mostly hydrogen, helium and their isotopes and other things such as stars and explosion created the heavier elements, I don't really understand how stars formed from hydrogen and helium.
Hydrogen and helium dissipate in a vacuum. At below 14.01 Kelvin, they are a metal and can clump together. However, as soon as enough heat is generated, they should change into a gas and dissipate.
Maybe a planet-sized clump of metallic hydrogen formed and in the center, the metallic hydrogen got very hot. Would it have enough energy to implode into a star? Or would it explode with enough force to create heavier elements?
Maybe metallic hydrogen planets smashed into each other at tremendous speeds? That could create heavier elements and eventually cause star formation. That sounds more likely.
Jupiter and other gaseous planets are thought to have cores of metallic hydrogen.
But I don't like the "Big Bang" theory, as it stands now.
I like the theory that eventually all mass becomes energy (theoretically, all mass decays to hydrogen, which then decays into radiation energy), and since theoretically energy isn't affected by time or space, there will be a moment when all the energy in the universe is without time or space, which is what people call a "singularity" and from which supposedly came the "big bang", according to theorists. I think I prefer the term "sudden existence" of mass and space, which would do away with the need for cosmic inflation.
Maybe dark matter is metallic clumps of hydrogen, helium, lithium and other stuff that are too small to be visibly detected directly, and can be detected only through their gravitational effects on surrounding galaxies?
"Dark energy"? Could be the effects of pressure from all the photons and radiation shooting out in all directions. If scientist say they can build a solar sail to propel spaceships, then they should agree that photons and radiation exert pressure on mass causing them to spread out. Will this account for all the "dark energy"? I don't know. Could do the math. Maybe someday...
Did you know that the "edges of the universe" move away from each other at faster than the speed of light?
"This can be seen when observing distant galaxies more than the Hubble radius away from us (approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs or 14.7 billion light-years); these galaxies have a recession speed that is faster than the speed of light. Light that is emitted today from galaxies beyond the cosmological event horizon, about 5 gigaparsecs or 16 billion light-years, will never reach us, although we can still see the light that these galaxies emitted in the past. ".
Most of the coronavirus cases are due to selfish people who want to avoid quarantine and hide from health officials.
In Daegu, a religious group continued to hold services for their 300,000 members in spite of some of their members being infected and submitted incomplete lists of their churches and members.
After cases spiked, they cancelled services and submitted a revised list. Authorities are investigating if they deliberately submitted incomplete lists. A couple dozen of its members are still not answering their phones and not cooperating with health authorities.
90% of the cases in Korea are in the city of Daegu and surrounding North Kyungsan province.
In Seoul, with around 10m citizens, shopping is back to normal, but only some restaurants and nightclubs are doing good business. A few cases are reported in Seoul each day, but a few cases are reported daily in many cities all around the world.
Korea has tested almost 180,000 people as of this afternoon, mostly members of the religious group (they account for over 60% of the cases).
Almost everyone wears masks in Korea and there are hand sanitizers everywhere.
Korea needs a president admits to experimenting with pot, like Obama. Too many uptight people here. Some are, like, pot smokers should be incarcerated for a long time because they are a menace to society. Geez! Take a look at the world today, pot is being legalized in more countries every year.
Did you know that Carlos was arrested for pot? I think he got a fine. I'm okay with $5 dollar fines, like in Ann Arbor in the 70s.
Most say the dimensions in string theory are three spatial dimensions, a time dimension, and many dimensions that are so small that they cannot be detected.
I think that the dimensions, besides the three spatial dimensions and time dimension, are not so small they cannot be detected, but are the dimensions of meaning, intent, life, energy and so on that cannot be detected physically. Meaning, intent and life are "real", so they must have a dimensional quality.
Tourists seem to outnumber Koreans in certain areas near the Dongdaemun (West Gate) shopping area.
I visited Phenom Penh, Bangkok, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, London and many more cities and saw other Koreans, Chinese, British, and tourists of other nationalities everywhere.
If China forgives South Korea for allowing US's THAAD anti-missile system to be installed in Korea and removes its unofficial boycott of Chinese tourists to South Korea, I should see even more Chinese while walking through my neighborhood, which is next to Dongdaemun.
Tourism is becoming really big in Korea and all over the world, it seems. A few decades ago, there were very few tourists.
Lots of expatriates living in Korea. Also, the number of families of mixed races has risen sharply over the past decade. Korean-Vietnamese, Korean-Cambodian, Korean-American and so on.
Pro-government rallies draw larger crowds. Usually anti-government rallies are small in scale.
He says that President Moon is "insane". Most Koreans respect President Moon very much and half the country thinks he is doing a very good job. This is in spite of all the incessantly bad press and outright lies from the conservatives and the rich.
The rich and powerful are losing control and they hate it.
Korea is the only country to pay to have American troops and bases. Subic Bay and Okinawa were American bases that the US paid a lease to the host country. American bases in Europe are funded by the US.
The US paid for the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. They are paying to protect Saudi Arabian oil fields. An article in the Wall Street Journal mentions the scope of US involvement since the oil field attacks.
The US pays for strategic military power in various regions of the world. In Korea, they have the THAAD anti-defense system. It is an early warning system for the US, in my opinion, and not of much use to Korea. There are enough missiles in North Korea to overwhelm the system and obliterate Korea many times over.
The only good thing he has done is stand up to China. It is a socialist country with undemocratic laws, extremely protectionist and unfair in trading. For example, to publish a video game in China, you need to get government approval, but they have not approved one single game from a foreign company. Only Chinese companies have gotten approval. So you have to be a minority partner in a joint venture with a Chinese company or go through a Chinese company. Either way, the business in China will be controlled by Chinese. There are seemingly endless examples of unfairness in all the other industries.
Korea can't afford to fight with China too hard. China accounts for around 42% of its trade surplus. Maybe Trump wants Korea to pay because of Korea's trade surplus, but if you follow that argument, he should be asking Japan to, at least, start to pay for US troops there.
Korea does not pay for the other countries that have military forces in Korea through the UN. Also the present situation with North Korea is not wholly due to South Korea's decisions and will, the US has the final world as the head of the military command in Korea during a war. Korea will take back command over its military forces even during wars in a few years, as agreed with the US.
The US military is all over the world and in dozens of countries, why is Korea the only country that helps pay for US forces in their country? And why does Korea have to pay more?
I don't think South Koreans are really scared by North Korea, militarily. We are more scared of China or Russia helping North Korea, and so is the US. That is one of the reasons that the US forces are still in Korea.
So, I think most people would see a sharing of the costs for US troops in Korea as logical. Asking for Korea to pay for the whole cost of US troops in Korea and related support operations in Guam and in the US ($ 4.7 billion), does not seem fair. It seems Trump is daring Korea to reject his demands and ask US troops to leave Korea.
(Updated 17 November - From an Reuters article, I found out that Japan also pays a share of the costs for US troops there and that the US wants them to pay 4 times more, around $ 8 billion for the costs. There are about 24,000 US troops in Korea and 54,000 in Japan.
