Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

California is losing its mind. LA is on lockdown for another THREE months.

[Whitley]

The UP hasn't had the break out of cases like lower Michigan has. They still have a couple counties up there that have no cases at all. So that's probably why LSSU feels fairly safe in opening campus. I'm glad to see it.

I think I may have read the same article as Whitley regarding CMU and WMU. I also saw that U-M is exploring all possibilities in opening campus in the fall. I hope they do, and I hope its very successful with no 'rebound' infections. It would boost the morale of this state immensely.

I think just seeing Michigan Stadium filled to capacity because IT IS SAFE TO DO SO would be great for my morale. I wouldn't even care what the outcome of the game is.

I expect to see a spike once Phase 5 (which allows dine in restaurants and bars to open up <along with travel>) happens. The question is how big that spike will be and if Northern Michigan can handle it.


I admit that I have never been to Michigan Stadium (or set foot on the campus) would love to go with my dad and meet ya'll one of these days.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Republicans ran a good candidate in CA-25 and looks like they will probably flip that seat (candidate was Hispanic, a veteran, and anti-Trump in some ways). This is the seat Katie Hill resigned from and if I recall correctly it's the first seat the Republicans have flipped in California since the 1990's?

[iam416]

Katie Hill only flipped it in 2018 (I think). And she was a fucking stain on that district. She was fucking staffers. If she were an old white dude there'd be no lack of moral clarity on this. But, she somehow tried to play the victim. And no one in her district bought it.

The dude who won is a political newbie, so he had no record. But, he's a Trumper. Typically, when you win a special election you're good in the fall, but Ds seem to think they'll take it back in the fall. Ordinarily I might buy into a turnout issue, but California actually shoved a ballot in everyone's face and said VOTE and the R still won.

[Hannibal]

B-b-b-b-but -- she was a victim of revenge porn!

[iam416]

It's laughable.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Katie Hill only flipped it in 2018 (I think). And she was a fucking stain on that district. She was fucking staffers. If she were an old white dude there'd be no lack of moral clarity on this. But, she somehow tried to play the victim. And no one in her district bought it.

The dude who won is a political newbie, so he had no record. But, he's a Trumper. Typically, when you win a special election you're good in the fall, but Ds seem to think they'll take it back in the fall. Ordinarily I might buy into a turnout issue, but California actually shoved a ballot in everyone's face and said VOTE and the R still won.

Right. So it's traditionally a Republican district. Still, technically the first time since 1998 a district has gone from blue to red in California

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2020-daily-trail-markers-could-mike-garcia-be-the-first-republican-to-flip-a-california-house-seat-since-1998-2020-05-12/

I've also heard constantly that mail-in elections are unfair to Republicans because Dems commit fraud all the time.

Trump bashes mail-in ballots; his campaign has actually been promoting it.

https://apnews.com/6416231367cfa0bd213796149f3cee26

[iam416]

Still, technically the first time since 1998 a district has gone from blue to red in California

Yeah, not disagreeing. Just providing some additional context. I don't think this is a big deal in the least. Frankly, Katie Hill winning in the first instance was more significant insofar as it was reflective of the D wave everywhere.

[AlabamAlum]

DSL, if you review the movies “Signs” on the chess thread, I demand editorial oversight.

Thanks,
AA
Chief Mod and all-around great guy

[Ghengis Jon]

FISA comes back up for discussion this week. Wonder if it'll even be covered by the general media.


https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/85402...debate-on-fisahttps://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/85402...debate-on-fisa

[Dr. Strangelove]

AA-

Perfectly willing to appoint you our M Night Shymalan curator

[AlabamAlum]

M.Nite Shamalamadingdong is worse than Hitler x Bin Laden + Stalin x Pol Pot. He is the reason I still support the death penalty.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The bad and dire warnings news continues today in the back-drop of what appears to be acceptable values of various country, state and local rate measures where restricted re-openings are occurring. I've read some very encouraging articles on how businesses are adapting, and apprently successfully, in Asia and Europe to return to acceptable levels of operation given government imposed and monitored restrictions. There are a few of these high-lighting what US business are doing now or planning to do as re-openings continue but the US is at least a month or more behind Europe and Asia. These articles are out there but you have to look for them and I haven't heard any talk about successes, and there are some, in the broadcast media.

The forward thinking hand-wringers, aside from continued DIRE WARNINGS ABOUT OUR CHILDREN!!!! seem to have abandoned the increasing number of deaths deaths and case numbers narrative and shifted to TESTING IS KEY TO REOPENING AND NOT ENOUGH TESTING!!!

There's plenty of misrepresentation of Dr. Fauci's testimony before Congress yesterday. I listened to it and it was fair. The hand-wringers of course cast his testimony to fit the DIRE WARNINGS narrative. He had more to say about the risk of re-openings without (1) meeting recommended gating criteria and (2) Re-openings without sufficient testing and tracking capacity. He did not posit what an acceptable rate measure of rise might be. That's the correct position to take on his part because we don't know. We've talked here about capacity measures (e.g., hospital bed availability) that would serve as good guide posts. Increasing case #s and deaths? Personally I don't think those are good measures. Fauci, importantly did not come close to suggesting, "we all gonna die if we re-open." Nevertheless, news headlines this morning suggested that could be the case.

What's interesting about this narrative shift is that I haven't heard anything specific that indicates how much testing is enough. Everyone? China, facing an uptick in new cases in Wuhan, is reportedly testing all 11 million residents there. How they are going to do that though isn't known. What kind of rate measures Chinese health authorities are using to gauge a sufficient level of containment isn't known or if it is, and I suspect this is the case, it's not making the news available to the public.

Nation wide, the US has a very high testing rate compared to other countries - but comparisons can be tricky because of differences, country to country, in how such data is reported. Public disclosure of key indicators for sufficient or insufficient testing as re-openings become on-going is lacking. Those measures need to be as granular as possible - by county and city - and permit the comparison of the number of tests performed (experts agree, the more the better) with GF or Growth Rates. For example, If the total number of tests per day is increasing with a stable GF or GR or even proportionally with small increases in GF or GR but with stable ED reports of ILI, hospital admissions for COVID like symptoms, bed space availability, things are going well. The opposite is also true and re-imposing tougher mitigation and containment measures may be warranted.

I haven't seen anything being made available publicly that does this. Reading between the lines in press briefings by GA's and FL's Governors, local mayors and local print media reports makes me certain that officials are watching things like I suggest above. I think the general perception among these officials, though, is that the general public won't understand or the media will misinterpret and misrepresent a public disclosure of this kind of data. That would be politics affecting public access to important measures for the rest of us that ought to guide how we behave.

Pertaining to this is the apparent decentralization at the state and local levels of decision making. S. FL is a great example of how fucked up this approach is. The Desantis re-opening plan is concise and unambiguous. He has, inappropriately in my mid, deferred to county officials on implementation timing. That would be fine if it was clear at the county level who was going to make these decisions. It's not. There is a mayor of the tri-county S. Florida regions that includes 3 large counties. But that Mayor defers to county officials and county officials defer to city officials. I watched the city of Fort Lauderdale's board of commissioners debate, down to specific sectors, what would be allowed and what would not be. A goat-rope if I ever saw one among some real dumb fuckers. This leads me to this final point .......

.........The patchwork set of mitigation and containment measures being retained as re-openings are allowed vary between counties and municipalities within them. I'm watching S. FL and Metro Atlanta closely. It's confusing and I've even read and understand official guidance that is being released at appropriate levels. I find that deferring final decisions from one level to a lower level (e.g. from county to city) creates confusion among business owners and consumers.

At the very least, make re-opening guidelines uniform by county to prevent, for example, the beaches in West Palm Beach Co. being open but closed in Broward and Dade or the two having different hours of access, or the beaches in Fort Lauderdale allowing access but no coolers and no umbrellas while those in West Palm allow them. We're talking about beaches that are blocks apart, not miles. I could go on noting the impact of varying degrees of restrictions beyond recreational facilities to include restaurants, bars, barbershops/hair and nail salons, manufacturing and so forth, also just blocks away from each other, but you get the point.

In order for the folks to get on with this, there has to be consistent public service messaging. We're not even close and I can see the benefit of this in comparable European settings. Confusion invites both unintentional non-compliance with important mitigation measures or the flaunting of them by provocateurs. Neither of these behaviors will help to contain the virus at local levels where officials aren't going to over-react and shut everything down again.

[AlabamAlum]

Hi Jeff, hope you’re well.

Your Friend,
AA

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hi Jeff, hope you’re well.

Your Friend,
AA

I am ....... your post occurred just 2 minutes after mine which is proof positive you didn't read it. Shameful.

I am clearly the most informed person on this forum regarding the subject of COVID no matter what talent might assert.