Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Trump's stuck in an untenable position right now where he wants to look strong while evading actual responsibility for anything.

PDJT is stuck in mostly an untenable positions. Full stop. This is the first time the US is playing an "enemey" that we're gonna to lose to and it's really just a matter of keeping them from running the score up on us TOO BAD. Acknowledging inevitable defeat and trying lead through that is, to be generous, not in his wheelhouse.

Of course, he's dealing with a media that will blame him for anything and everything (blood on this hands!), and that only pushes him further away from where he needs to be because he's cogenitally incapable of ignoring slights and attacks.

In any event, as long as Sleepy Joe lays lo' he should win big in November.

[iam416]

Every damn day I'll post this. Every. Damn. Day.

I see that the Media has opted not to give Joe Biden the Brett Kavanaugh treatment. Raise your hand if you are, in any way, surprised.

#BelieveWallWomen...umm...WhoAccuseConservatives

[Jeff Buchanan]

The football analogy for where Trump sits re COVID is a good one. However, like the football coach on the losing sidelines, he is going to take unmitigated shit for losing after the fact. Meanwhile as the other team keeps scoring, fans start leaving (See Hanni's post last night on Rasmussen down a "staggering" 13 points).

I may not like that the press is dumping on him at every opportunity but his administration's lack of ability to actually effectuate policy has been an unmitigated disaster. I read a public policy piece written by academics from GWU that laid out some of these problems and articulated straight forward solutions, e.g., the PPP and Small SBA loan programs - for the PPP, have Treasury/IRS compute the payrolls for small businesses impacted by COVID based on tax filings, determine the level of support to be granted and deposit money directly into these small business' bank accounts .... no applications, no banks, no paperwork, quick and fast. Made sense. UIBs approached similarly.

I also don't like recriminations but it has gotten to the point that I don't think most Americans trust the president or the federal government. Instead they are looking to state governors and city mayors to provide the leadership they clamor for in this mess. Some are providing for it better than others but if Trump wanted to dismantle federalism and move toward unitary states, he's doing a great job of that.

The danger here WRT COVID is the lack of a uniform process to test and report results to a central authority. That would allow the distribution of appropriately informed public health policy from a national level as the nation's economy starts to re-open. What we will end up with - and this is already happening - is a patchwork of reopenings regionally all with different testing and reporting criteria that can confound recovery.

Saying this is nothing new. We knew Trump suffered from narcissism per DSM V without actually getting diagnosed with it. Technically, it becomes a serious disease when it disables the patient. I think he reached that level yesterday with the Fauci and Governor's shit and then the 2h presser yesterday evening where he took 90 minutes with graphics to tout his achievements. Sick...... what's happening on the ground is night and day different from what is coming out of the president's mouth.

[Ghengis Jon]

I see that the Media has opted not to give Joe Biden the Brett Kavanaugh treatment. Raise your hand if you are, in any way, surprised.

No surprise whatsoever (doesn't make it right).

But when you have a President who is a serial adulterer that publicly and repeatedly lies about it, advocates sexual assault ("just grab them by the pussy because that's what they like"), uses the legal system (NDAs, frivolous lawsuits) in attempt to conceal proof of his behavior, and has a legion of cult followers that blindly approves anything done by Dear Leader, you are surprised that glossing over such activity is now considered acceptable given the frequency and stature of it's biggest proponent?

Maybe if both parties nominated a candidate that represented the best of American qualities instead of tribal adherence we wouldn't be having this conversation. We certainly wouldn't have the ballot we're going to see in November. Voters have no one to blame but themselves. Not the media, not the candidates with human failings. Take your vote seriously - don't make obvious bad choices in the primaries and don't vote like a tribe in the general.

[Hannibal]

I hope that one of the casualties of Covid-19 will be people's overreliance on and the inappropriate amount of trust placed in Fancystats and supermath models that exemplify the expression "garbage in = garbage out". These things stand out most in the sports world, but they are used everywhere else too, from economic predictions to predictions about how Global Warming is going to kill us all in a few years. Even the famous Drake Equation (a calculation of how many intelligent civilizations there supposedly are in the galaxy) is an example of this arm of junk science.

The models all said that by now we would have millions upon millions upon millions of bodies piling up in the streets from Covid-19. This was going to be essentially the siege of Leningrad but for the entire world. The unofficial governor of Ohio (Amy Acton) said that by our peak, we would have thousands of cases per day (this was well into social distancing). Ohio has never even broken 500 new cases in a day. The models weren't just off by a little bit. They were off by at least one or two orders of magnitude. Garbage in = garbage out. You can have all of the math PhDs in the world working on a model but if it is calibrated with garbage data than it is entirely worthless.

[Hannibal]

No surprise whatsoever (doesn't make it right).

But when you have a President who is a serial adulterer that publicly and repeatedly lies about it, advocates sexual assault ("just grab them by the pussy because that's what they like"), uses the legal system (NDAs, frivolous lawsuits) in attempt to conceal proof of his behavior, and has a legion of cult followers that blindly approves anything done by Dear Leader, you are surprised that glossing over such activity is now considered acceptable given the frequency and stature of it's biggest proponent?

Maybe if both parties nominated a candidate that represented the best of American qualities instead of tribal adherence we wouldn't be having this conversation. We certainly wouldn't have the ballot we're going to see in November. Voters have no one to blame but themselves. Not the media, not the candidates with human failings. Take your vote seriously - don't make obvious bad choices in the primaries and don't vote like a tribe in the general.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that politics specifically attracts sexual predators.

[iam416]

Biden campaigan complains, the NYT edits its article #BelievingOldWhiteMen....errr....OldWhiteDemocrats -- https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...gn-complained/

It's beyond parody. My favorite quote:

LOL. Yeah, no fucking shit it's very subjective. And for anyone that has any motherfucking doubt where the NYT's subjective REPORTING preferences lay....

[CGVT]

Too bad that the steps taken to mitigate the spread of the virus are working and those damn fancy stats and models were wrong.

[AlabamAlum]

[froot loops]

I hope that one of the casualties of Covid-19 will be people's overreliance on and the inappropriate amount of trust placed in Fancystats and supermath models that exemplify the expression "garbage in = garbage out". These things stand out most in the sports world, but they are used everywhere else too, from economic predictions to predictions about how Global Warming is going to kill us all in a few years. Even the famous Drake Equation (a calculation of how many intelligent civilizations there supposedly are in the galaxy) is an example of this arm of junk science.

The models all said that by now we would have millions upon millions upon millions of bodies piling up in the streets from Covid-19. This was going to be essentially the siege of Leningrad but for the entire world. The unofficial governor of Ohio (Amy Acton) said that by our peak, we would have thousands of cases per day (this was well into social distancing). Ohio has never even broken 500 new cases in a day. The models weren't just off by a little bit. They were off by at least one or two orders of magnitude. Garbage in = garbage out. You can have all of the math PhDs in the world working on a model but if it is calibrated with garbage data than it is entirely worthless.

Trust Trump!

It would help if you read the reports on the modeling, this post proves you didn't.

[Hannibal]

People were predicting in this very thread millions dead in the United States alone, and Ohio's acting governor was predicting 4,000 new cases per day by May. This was after social distancing.

[AlabamAlum]

[froot loops]

If you lift the measures as if there was nothing to worry about you will get mass death. I'm not sure why it's so complicated to understand that, with these lockdown measures we have hospitals fully devoted and filled with COVID patients. A hospital with at maximum 20 ICU beds had to be retrofitted for almost 60.beds of COVID patients.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I hope that one of the casualties of Covid-19 will be people's overreliance on and the inappropriate amount of trust placed in Fancystats and supermath models that exemplify the expression "garbage in = garbage out". These things stand out most in the sports world, but they are used everywhere else too, from economic predictions to predictions about how Global Warming is going to kill us all in a few years. Even the famous Drake Equation (a calculation of how many intelligent civilizations there supposedly are in the galaxy) is an example of this arm of junk science.

EFZ

[Whitley]

I am not surprised that the MSM sat on this to prop up Biden. Tara Reid, the former Biden staff that is accusing him, went to Ryan Grim (who broke the Ford allegations) and Krystal Ball around the turn of the year. They referred her to MSM friends to pick up the story since they figured if they broke it---they would be accused of trying to torpedo the Biden campaign given their journalistic positions in left wing media (Grim on the Intercept, Ball is the host of the morning show Rising). MSM refused to touch it, so Grim published it and was attacked for trying to hurt the Biden campaign.

Now, with Sen Sanders endorsing Biden, they have the time to investigate it.


In other dumb things, Florida Gov. on one line

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/04/14/florida-classifies-pro-sports-as-essential-services-during-pandemic/

Florida has determined that pro sports (without fans) is essential. Absolutely not responsible at all.