Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Burr always seemed like the one of that group who was in trouble. I think that's consensus we actually reached after the story broke (and accused others, as noted).

Loeffler is fucked because she has to get through a primary and the appearance is bad. She needs the FBI to affirmatively clear her to have a chance.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Yes, Burr did the trades himself as I recall. And even worse, it came out recently that his brother-in-law sold all the same stocks the same day Burr did.

I'll assume the FBI would not serve a sitting US Senator with a search warrant unless things smelled really bad.

[Ghengis Jon]

... It might also force the idiot fringe of the D party to recognize how fucking much all the free shit they keep calling for is not affordable in the post-COVID realty....

Idiot fringes of ANY party refuse to recognize any reality beyond the echo chamber.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Breaking COVID news .....................for S. FL, heh, had you there. But, in keeping with my AM and PM articles (I'm no longer pretending they are posts) here goes:

Governor Desantis along with the mayors of Broward and Miami-Dade Co's. staged a press conference today to announce the Phase I re-opening of these two counties on Monday, May 18th.

Remember that Desanits declared Phase I re-openings for 64 of the 67 FL Co's on May 3rd. Included were many beaches located in coastal counties in mid and northern FL. The Tri-County region of S. FL was excluded at the request of the various mayors there saying "they weren't ready" whatever that might have meant (see my comments about the secretive nature of measures being used to make re-opening decisions). West Palm Beach County re-opened last Monday, May, 11th with limited/restricted beach openings.

Miami-Dade's mayor announced the production of a 182!!! page document describing, in great detail, the rules of re-opening that have to be followed by about 20 different business sectors. There are many businesses excluded (e.g., gyms, massage parlors, gambling casinos) and beaches. The document introduces a color coding system that will signify which phase of re-opening the Tri-County region will be in: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue with Blue being no restrictions. It goes on to detail employer, employee and non-employee rules in each phase.

Personally, I think this is fucking crazy, at least to the extent the rules have been developed ..... I suspect it is the development of this complicated document that "wasn't ready" that kept these counties from opening when the Governor opened up the rest of the state on May 3rd. It's Orwellian.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I took note of is that as we complain that the nay-saying media has "moved the goals posts" that they want to use to prompt "DIRE WARNINGS!!!" about re-opening, so too have the re-opening advocates moved there's. Desantis ticked off the following measures that justify re-openings in FL including the delayed re-openings in the Tri-county S. FL region:

State wide new case %s as a percentage of total tests has dropped to 2.5% overall from over 25% at the start of testing and has remained there since re-opening started on May 3rd.

Residents in ICUs state wide dropped 21% since May 3rd (state wide implementation of Phase 1)

Residents on vents state wide has dropped 34% since May 3rd

Case numbers and deaths are no where mentioned - and I think that is fine.

I think mentioning these numbers state wide is completely fair and is a strong indicator of contagion control in FL - esp. the 2.5% new case rate - you'll recall I posted up thread that rate numbers below 7% are good, below 3% indicate control.

Moving on to Miami-Dade, West Palm Beach and Broward counties - 67% of FL's population - the cases as a percentage of total tests is a bit above 9%. That's not control.

Desantis offered these caveats: there are prison hot-spots being discovered in these counties and these are easy to ID, quarantine, treat and contain (too long to explain why but, trust me, I worked in a prison and solitary confinement is doable). these are driving new case rates up and are not reflective of a lack of control - I wouldn't disagree.

LTC facilities have a huge impact on new positives as over the last two weeks, there has been a concerted effort to test all LTC facilities - both employees and residents. Again, easy to ID, treat and confine. In FL, newly diagnosed LTC residents, from the gitgo, have been getting sent to the hospital in most cases where they cannot be isolated on site. LTC facility employees are getting tested 2X per week - an example of good deployment of targeted testing in known hot-spots, potential hot spots.

Brushing those not very good stats aside with caveats, Desantis moved on to these measures for just the Tri-county region ......

ICU beds down 36% from 197 to 126

Vents down 43% from 120 to 68

ILI from 7.7% to 4.4% of ED visit presenting symptoms.

Opponents of re-opening will call this cherry picking data to support re-opening. I think there's a shit-ton of reliable rate indicators that are valid demonstrators of reasons why re-openings should be undertaken. This in the era of we really "don't know" a lot of things about COVID. There are risks that cannot be reduced to zero while unemployment skyrockets, along with stressed residents, increased substance abuse, family stress and violence ..... and, oh, yes, child abuse. I can do THE CHILDREN!!! thing too and veryunfortuenately I have the data to back that up. That shit is on the rise.

What I'm seeing as FL re-opens more aggressively than most states, points out that one size of re-openings does not fit all, not even close. It does have to local - I'd like to see regionally for reasons I pointed out earlier but I'm more and more convinced that maybe you do need to make plans on a municipality/city level ...... that's hard and confusing to residents but probably justified from a public health standpoint.

Clearly, 182 pages of rules that may be implemented and enforced differently in cities within the Tri-county region of S. FL will end up as a cluster fuck. I would have gone with a few sensible guidelines and COMMON SENSE. That would no-doubt work just fine.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Could you repeat that but in detail this time?

[iam416]

There is nothing more annoying than Buchanan providing a thumbail summary. The more thumbnail it is the more we have to rely on the intermediary, a notoriously daft and ill-tempered charlatan.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Things you never hear...

...why JB... you are a man of few words...

[iam416]

Great play-calling, Coach FROSTY!!!!!

Congratulations on beating Ohio State Coach HARBAUGH!!!!!

I have some good news for you Mr. The Wizard. It turns out you're not mentally incapacitated to point of being a drooling nincompoop or MWC back judge.

Why Mr. AlabamAlum, I see that you've opted to refrain from drunken Montgomery bathhouse lechery.

[Ghengis Jon]

If silence is golden then Jeff is running a deficit like the feds.


3 million new jobless claims and the market goes up. Wonder if we'll see another 30% drop when reality sets in, this time from 24k.

[Jeff Buchanan]

You fuckers having nothing else to do while your locked up in your houses or otherwise limited to working at home (yeah, right!) than read my informative articles.

Jon, yeah the markets. That was a 650 point swing today maybe more as I haven't checked it since around 2p but it's crazy ...... nothing we didn't actually expect. so, best advice, sit back and grab a bag of popcorn ..... one that's gonna last for about the next 18 months or so...... and don't go check your portfolio values unitl then either. We'll all be fine. Trust me.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just checked ...... just shy of 1000 point swing from 22.7 to 23.8. I was pretty sure the DOW was going to dive below that sort of magical 22K level where I'd have to die several more years ahead of time, that, or eat cat food.

[Ghengis Jon]

Figure 16k by mid July. Or September when the 2nd wave hits.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Buzz-killer.

BTW, I had a nice talk with Doc Hodgeman on Tuesday I think it was. He is still sharp as a tack at 89. Talked about making it to a tailgate this fall if one of those happens.

[Ghengis Jon]

I will be immensely happy if that happens. Tailgate, Hodgeman, and football.

[Dr. Strangelove]

New tensions with China have the stock futures sinking. Earlier this week Trump announced he was extending for another year the decision to block Huawei in the US. Today we announced we are also trying to cut off their supply of semiconductors made with US tech.

China is leaking word of retaliation if this happens. They will halt all orders of Boeing planes and add Apple, Qualcomm, and Cisco to an "unreliable entity" list, essentially making it impossible for those companies to do business in China

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/15/us-china-tensions-rise-as-trump-administration-moves-to-cut-huawei-off-from-global-chip-suppliers.html