Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[AlabamAlum]

William Sessions died today. He was Director of the FBI from Reagan's last years until Bill Clinton fired him in 1993. But those of us of a certain age who frequented arcades in the late 80's-early 90's would probably best remember him from this screen

winnersdontdodrugs.gif

How dare you ignore my Cornell sass!

How. Dare. You!

[Jeff Buchanan]

The DJIA, down 1800 points on Thursday, started the day on Friday up 600 points, shed most of those gains by midday, held on to a 100-150 point gain through 2pm and then surged, in the last 2h of trading to close up nearly 500 points. Anyone who thinks they can glean insight into a post COVID economic recovery from following the stock market is deluded.

New case numbers continue to rise and last night's and this mornings national headlines prominently feature FL as one of the nation's hot-spots. Our local news is rife with hand wringing over a "surge", "new daily records," and questions regarding re-opening strategies. Desantis roundly dismisses them and he is right to do so (see below). Local officials tend to be more circumspect lending credence to "concerns." I have friends who, convinced a few days ago to venture out, are now saying nope, I think I'll stay at home ...... I'm not sure local papers and government officials know how damaging their negative or non-committal talk is to the mood of the folks. National news doesn't care. Their narrative is going to continue regardless of the facts discovered on deep dives on a state and county wide basis.

First, the variance of COVID infections across FL counties is striking. Most of the state is unaffected. The heavily populated counties account for more than 75% of all cases and around 90% of new cases. FL isn't a hot spot. Certain S. FL, along with the Orange Co. that includes the Orlando area, have the most new cases ...... and yep, significant increases in testing routinely accompany those. State wide % +s has remained unchanged over the last 5d that the media is reporting this surge - about 5%. Before re-opening and in the 2 weeks immediately after, % +s hovered between 2-4%. Reported daily new case were < 200/d state wide. County % +s vary between zero and 8% - and the higher % +s are concentrated in 5 of 67 FL counties.

The new testing surge has been driven by several factors: (1) officials have urged people involved in large gatherings if FL associated with protesting to get tested. They've responded. (2) Public health officials, beginning about 2 weeks ago when concern about virus spread in the ag sector of FL rose, local PH facilities began aggressively testing thousands of workers in this industry. Not only were there lots of new cases but monitoring of them and contact tracing numbers surged - this is a mark of a well managed pandemic. None of this makes the news.

I tire of the perceived need I have of casting a bright light on the journalistic malfeasance of COVID reporting. 3 weeks or so ago, I started seeing balance in data reporting as rate data began to appear in most articles reporting on the pandemic. That was driven by aggressive re-opeing in some states and that the data wasn't showing any changes in response to them. There was even rather positive messaging going on. Then the Floyd thing happened and COVID wasn't even getting reported. As that headline has lost its appeal, the media has resumed its negative and less than fact based narrative on this thing. Time for the Biden/Trump race and all the scandalous revelations of each candidate to dominate the headlines. Can't wait.

[Cody_Russell]

Market would probably jump up big if it was open now. Fauci saying a 2nd wave is not inevitable.
Noticed that stonks LOVE to move up big or down depending on a Dr. Fauci statement. ... particularly, being a big part of the 2-3 day dip in early May.

[Dr. Strangelove]

AA-

[Ghengis Jon]

Taking corona virus seriously....

https://twitter.com/i/status/1270071633013866496

[Jeff Buchanan]

Correction to my earlier COVID post this morning: I stated that PH officials in FL had asked participants taking part in protests get tested and they responded and then extended that to state a portion of FL's state wide increases were from that group. That is not correct based on reporting. The majority of new cases are coming from the 25-45yo age group not necessarily participating in protests.

Not a correction but some more details: The Ag sector of FL's workers are being targeted for testing and do have a high positivity rate. However most of these workers are under 45. PH officials were concerned about these workers living in multi-generational housing (code for stuffing 10 Mexicans/South Americans in a hotel room or small apartment) .........

....... which leads me to a review of the Fauci statement noted by Cody above that "a second wave is not inevitable." I read quotes from the interview but have not heard actual audio. Fauci is very careful how he responds to questions so, I would have liked to hear the audio. But, from the quotes, what he's saying is that there are better ways to measure the spread of the virus by looking at, for example, hospital admissions. Here, we've been looking at these rates for the last month in an effort to balance the negative narrative that continues, unabated, to come from the media. That, appears to me to be the most important thing he probably said but, no, the headline is as above. Jeeeez.

What disturbs me about what I'm reading today is the mixed media originated messages quoting various "experts" varying from governors are putting the almighty dollar ahead of lives to the risk to the economy of not opening is greater than the risk of staying shuttered for COVID to an unabashed approval of reopening everything (the later not being heard very often but there are such advocates). I do think that the value of wearing masks and social distancing to contain spread of the virus is getting out there but Jon posts a video were there are also people that are either uninformed, stupid or, in this girl's case, both. My take remains essentially unchanged:

• The virus's transmissibility is receding in most of the US but measures of that {R(t)} vary significantly on a state and city basis.
• Reopening or the protests are not single factors driving reported case # increases nation wide as the press would have you believe.
• State wide measures of R(t) can be affected in both directions by the type and speed of reopening strategies.
• I think most state's PH agencies are doing a good job of advising the governors, mayors and city commissioners on how to proceed using rate data that have been discussed here for months but now making the rounds as some sort of gestalt by the press. I base this on the details I review every day in FL and what I read about other states' experience with managing this thing.
• Compliance with reopening orders by residents will affect transmissibility in both directions. The CDC, this weekend, announced that from data being reported to them compliance with masking and social distancing measures range from 75% (across all states) to 90% (NYC). I think you can pretty much assume that the aggravating videos of non-compliance with reopening mitigation measures are not representative of the norm - another example of the misleading reporting on COVID with a direct impact on making potential consumers stay home, prepare for the worst and be fine with business failures and the attendant job loses in their communities.

[Hannibal]

The UT Austin Fight song has now been declared Haram by the clergy of the new religion.

Overnight we became a Marxist theocracy. You must all now repent for your sins and bend the knee to people who hate you.

[AlabamAlum]

The whole song thing is a head scratcher. Yeah, it, was sung in minstrel shows, but so were hundreds of other songs.

The song wasn’t the racist action, the actual minstrel shows were. They ate and drank and breathed and laughed and talked at minstrel shows. Are those now racist actions?

[AlabamAlum]

And in Atlanta.

Guy asleep in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s. Cops called. Sleeping guy moves to a parking spot. Police decide to arrest him. He fights police, gets the taser from one of the cops, and runs. Cop pursues. The guy whips around and points the stolen taser at the pursuing cop and gets shot and dies.

So, now rioters have burned down that Wendy’s and have shut down the interstate. The cop is fired after being publicly excoriated by the mayor and the police chief has resigned as a result.

I am as anti police abuse as anyone. But come the fuck on.

https://apple.news/ALjfCNxsVQ3iymFChBHn5ow

[iam416]

We're way past over the edge, now. Only question is what the "edge" is and what comes after. Personally, I think it's more like being about a third of way down Niagara Falls in a barrel, but perhaps we're on the path to total enlightenment.

[AlabamAlum]

And the media is the willing handmaiden to this unraveling. He failed a sobriety test (shocking, since he was asleep in his car in a drive-thru), violently fought the cops, grabbed the officer’s taser, ran, and then pointed the taser at the pursuing cop.

But some media reported it was just a ‘minor scuffle’. One source even originally stated that he was ‘shot in the back for simply attempting to flea.’

I don’t even have words.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The 2nd link below is a pretty decent NYT article that lays out it's premise - cases are rising in certain states with reopening - but provides balanced data so as not to leave the reader with a sense of a catastrophe looming. It mentions in a sub-plot that state officials are recognizing the reality of rising new case #s (increased transmissibility = R(t) - see RtLive: https://rt.live/ ) as the cost of necessarily getting their economies back on line. The public needs to buy into this line of thinking and official messaging along with how the media writes about this is key to that happening. I'll continue to rant about this as it is my duty so to do!

RT.PNG

I think the important question, not getting a lot of press, is at what level of increased transmissibility do you say the cost is not worth the benefit? My optimistic take is that increasing new case #s will devolve into a sustained plateau at a point where the new case numbers consolidate in the under 45 age group, this group suffers only from mild symptoms and death and hospitalizations for serious symptoms remains stable or declines. So far it has and the epidemiological, science and medical research I've read to date supports that take. Still, I worry about the folks not giving a shit and precipitating unacceptable increases in transmissibility that will force politician's hands.

Hopefully, though and if the folks take this seriously and pay attention, we'll see the plateau sustainable and ethically acceptable until a safe and effective vaccine is produced. The right messaging from official sources and the media is critical in achieving this. Once production and delivery is scalable, if we can get to that point without losing the battle of R(t), case #s will decline. Everything I'm reading assures me that is going to happen...... unfortunately, not before students would need to return to campus in the fall and the CFB season is scheduled to start. I'd be concerned as a PH official that going full-steam ahead with this, even with mitigation measures in place, would significantly increase new infections and tip the scale to not worth it as mostly a political issue.

So, what is the time frame for wide scale distribution of a vaccine? I wrote about this a couple of days ago and nothing much has changed but the picture has become clearer thanks to several web sites developing vaccine trackers. There are two vaccine candidates that are likely to get approval in the US and EU + GB by September. They are now in concurrent Phase 2/3 testing protocols and both have arrangements already in place to start production. One is Moderna's mRNA-1273 product, the other is AstraZeneca's AZD1222. What is important about these two vaccines is that they have just about unlimited funding from both the US and EU through the various agencies that are providing it. Moreover, the US and EU + GB already have contractual agreements for the distribution of billions of doses. Beyond that are literally hundreds of other vaccines, not as far a long in the regulatory pipeline for the US and EU + GB, but nonetheless likely to come to market for wider global distribution along with the two primary candidates I mention above (see 1st link).

https://www.raps.org/news-and-articl...accine-tracker

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/u...b2da6e075b25bf

[AlabamAlum]

As far as race, I am about as white as they come. My “23 and Me” has me at 92% Scot and 4% Norwegian (fucking Vikings), and if I fight police, grab the cop’s taser, point it at him after running, I would get shot. There is no doubt in my mind. And how could anyone think that it was anything other than an unfortunate but completely justified use of force by the police?

[Jeff Buchanan]

The mayor of Atlanta and one of the leading candidates to join Biden's ticket as VP, Keisha Lance Bottoms, disagrees with you saying it was an "unjustifiable use of deadly force."

I wonder how the police might de-escalate this situation. The guy is asleep in the drive through, police approach and things seem to be moving along as they administer a field sobriety check and he appears to comply. I assume they started to arrest him when he failed it - normal procedure I would think, and he resists. Reports have it that he grabbed the officer's taser and runs. A taser is not a lethal weapon but it sure as hell looks like one. I'm standing there as a cop. Do I pursue? I think it's my duty to complete the arrest. Off I go. The runner then turns and points the tazer - or is it a gun the runner now has in his hand? Again, I'm the cop. I can just let him flee or I can stop him with my firearm. Tough call in the heat of the moment.

This is what we're dealing with here. Most of these encounters involving police are a lot like this. They are tough calls - Floyd's wasn't but that is one of the 100s, probably 1000's of these situations that occur daily. Solutions are elusive to everyone except those pandering to the current Floyd killing precipitated idiocy.

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t care if the cop knew it was a taser. Any weapon used against an officer who is attempting to lawfully arrest a suspect fighting and resisting opens up a legitimate use of lethal force.

Or we can just have criminals carry tasers and mandate that cops cannot defend themselves from such, let them get tased, and watch the cops get incapacitated from said taser and ultimately shot and killed with their own weapon.