Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

Never has a poll so accurately summed up the November shit sandwich: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/10/2020...president.html

Swing State voters think both candidates are mentally unfit.

[Jeff Buchanan]

From what I'm gathering by reading local news from around the US, schools reopening with any level of in-person learning are having trouble deciding what to do with new COVID positive tests within their student bodies. That includes grades K-12 and beyond that, colleges. The reports are scattered, responses to a new case or multiple new cases are not uniform and setting aside the motives of the media in reporting school reopening problems due to COVID, and TBF, what to do with new cases can be problematic.

What I find to be inconsistent with the US experience is that European schools are open with some well thought out mitigation measures but less hand wringing. The consensus position is that schools must reopen for in person learning. There is, generally, much less politicization of returning to school in the current virus circumstance than in the US. I read an article in the WSJ now about a month old that pointed to a number of EU and scandinavian nations that had either already opened schools and daycare or were planning to open them. Smaller groups, interval schedules to reduce contacts, masking and distancing of students 11 and older were being implemented rather uniformly. New positives did occur but the response was surgical, e.g., isolate positives only by class and there contacts for 10 days, then resume. No schools completely shut down. There are no substantiated reports of serious illness among school age kids in Europe.

I posted a month ago about the detailed link I read regarding ND's plan to open with some in-person learning that ND appeared to abandon when C-19 positives started to happen in numbers that made planned on-campus isolation impractical. So, they controversially, sent newly C-19 + students and known contacts home to isolate and stopped on-campus, in-person learning completely. I believe they have resumed some in-person classes. Not sure where UNC is. But these approaches don't IMO, comport with the available virus facts or the anecdotal experience with reopening schools in Europe. That would certainly indicate how political, on a regional basis, COVID related PH policy decision has become. I'd be fine with regional differences if they were based on virus facts but they aren't. There's way too much fear among officials that any decision on school reopening might result in problems that those officials will have to own.

[iam416]

Matt Taibbi with some fairly astute observations. I don't necessarily agree with it all, but he cuts to the heart of the matter on several points. Worth the read: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-tr...s-and-needs-to

Personally, I think some parts describe DSL to a tee.

I also liked this:

American politics has become an interminable clash of off-putting pathologies. Call it the hydroxychloroquine effect. Trump one day in a press conference mutters that a drug has “tremendous promise” as a treatment of coronavirus. Within ten seconds a consensus forms that hydroxycholoroquine is snake oil, and the New York Times is running stories denouncing Trump’s “brazen willingness to distort and outright defy expert opinion and scientific evidence when it does not suit his agenda.”

Then you read the story and find out doctors have been prescribing the drug, that “early reports from doctors in China and France have said that [it] seemed to help patients,” and moreover that the actual quote about it being a “game changer” from Trump included the lines, “Maybe not” and “What do I know? I’m not a doctor.” In response to another Trump quote on the subject, “What do you have to lose?” journalists piled on again, quoting the president of the American Medical Association to remind audiences “you could lose your life” — as if Trump had recommended that people run outside and mainline the stuff.

Trump being Trump, he responded to this criticism by doubling down over and over, eventually re-tweeting a video boosting the drug by a doctor named Stella Immanuel. She turned out to believe that alien DNA had been used in medical treatments, atheist doctors were working on a religion vaccine, and uterine endometriosis is caused by demon sperm. Asked about this “misinformation,” Trump somehow managed to include both a xenophobic putdown about the Nigerian doctor and a lie about his enthusiasm for her, saying, “I don’t know what country she comes from… I know nothing about her.”

All of which is insane, but so is rooting for a drug to not work in the middle of a historic pandemic, the clear subtext of nearly every news story on this topic dating back to March. Rule #1 of the Trump era is that everything Trump touches quickly becomes as infamous as he is, maybe not the biggest deal when talking about an obscure anti-malarial drug, but problematic when the subject is America itself.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't think I really need to defend my 2016 vote for Trump, for the reasons I've stated. .......

Sorry, I should have qualified what I believe you may be rationalizing and that would be your potential vote for Trump in 2020. Now that you've posted that you really haven't made up your mind between the two shitty candidates, that sort of renders my statement irrelevant.

I think most of us agree here as far as our votes for the presidency are concerned we're facing a real "shit sandwich."

[Jeff Buchanan]

A decent read by Taibbi but this comment on his article is gold (emboldened portions are mine):

I agree with almost everything in this piece and enjoy your writing as always. Nodding my head in agreement through 95% of this article is kind of sad since I am (likely?) voting Republican in November. My issue here is what a lot of the other commentators have also said - the dare I say sloppy ending to this article, where you basically say that things will go back to "normal" if we can get rid of Trump. I think that ignores how insane the Democrats and the left have been driven and how malignant the new identitarian politics have become over the past several years. As you said, the media and the left have become addicted to the outrage cycle - if Trump is gone they will simply find new people to tar and feather and completely lose their shit on.

I can't support the Dem's insane, racist agenda and I don't believe a vote for them is a vote to go back to the 90s as you seem to hope it is.

[iam416]

Oh, for sure. Anyone who thinks we're full steam ahead with the leftist agenda is out of their gourd.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Ohio Supreme Court rules against Kanye West in a unanimous decision. He will not be on the ballot.

[Mike]

That's gonna really hurt his chances in Ohio.

[Whitley]

Very good commentary from a economic populist conservative

[Ghengis Jon]

....I think most of us agree here as far as our votes for the presidency are concerned we're facing a real "shit sandwich."

Milquetoast and shit. Chips come with that?

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hmmmmm ...... an "economic populist conservative?" Not with those positions he's staking out. He may cast himself in that mold but his words belie that characterization.

The wage gap that grew post financial crisis of 2008 and will grow wider post COVID is pure leftist talk. So is the notion that the failure of government or capital markets are the cause of income disparity in the US. I've not read a single academic paper from a legitimate economist and one that doesn't embrace the works of Karl Marx that shares that view.

There are multiple causes of income disparity in the US. One that gets a lot of traction is the study of income differences between the varying levels of educational attainment (usually measured by the highest degree of education an individual has completed) have increased. Expertise and skill certified through an academic degree translates into increased scarcity of an individual's occupational qualification which in turn leads to greater economic rewards. As the US has developed into a post industrial society more and more employers require expertise that they did not a generation ago. Meanwhile the manufacturing sector which employed many of those lacking a post-secondary education is decreasing in size.

We have a large number of Americans who make life decisions and choices that eschew education for the pursuit of other interests that then end up looking for jobs to support a particular life-style that no longer exist. That is the reason these Americans end up working for "Uber Eats and becoming part of America's delivery economy" ..... or that end up writing and protesting about the failure of government to right the institutional injustices that have held them back or failed to properly redistribute the nation's wealth equitably.

I can detail another 1/2-dozen or so legitimate reasons for income disparity in the US. Some of them do involve failure of legislative process and the speaker's take on that failure I agree with but these are an insignificant part of various economic realities that are behind wage inequality.

[Ghengis Jon]

I think it's so precious that someone thinks the Progressive-Socialist movement is some sort of knee-jerk reaction. I guess in a world where you literally -- and I do mean literally -- blame everything on PDJT that's the only way to get there. But, it is truly as ignorant as it is precious.

Seriously Talent, your reading comprehension issues are treatable. Or is it that it makes a convenient excuse for your distorted reality pronouncements?

Nowhere did I suggest that your boogieman movement as a knee jerk reaction. I observed that when an extremist of one persuasion is elected, the other side of the coin will be energized and elect an extremist of their own, as a knee jerk. Countless examples. And where have I blamed everything on your hero? I have relentlessly called out his anti-American stances and actions. But blame for everything? Where? He is to blame for alienating our allies. He is to blame for sharpening an already deep partisanship divide. He is to blame for demoralizing our intelligence services. There's three, hardly "everything", except maybe in your little deluded mind. Look at the 4 biggest issues of the day - covid, rioting, perceived racism, and China - please enlighten me as to where I have assigned blame on your idol. Spoiler alert: you can't.

Perhaps it's something deeper - maybe your snarky little misstatements make you feel good and somehow witty in a world that does not recognize your self perceived omnipotence. Again, something completely treatable.

[iam416]

Again, I think it's precious that you think the election of AOC is some sort of knee-jerk reaction. I think it's precious that you have the gumption to blame PDJT for AOC. I really do. I think it's cute that you think she's not a product of a larger shift in the D party that, you know, voted for Bernie in significant numbers in two separate primaries. Nah, AOC (or the rest of the Squad) couldn't possibly be a product of D politics. It's all PDJT!

Precious. I didn't misread anything.

Look at the 4 biggest issues of the day - covid, rioting, perceived racism, and China - please enlighten me as to where I have assigned blame on your idol.

I'm happy that you don't blame PDJT on any of these issues. However, when virtually every single post is one unhinged rant after another about PDJT then I feel fairly safe in assuming that the 997th issue that comes up will be just like the 996 that preceded them. I relied on statistical probability and, hey,apparently there are 4 outlier issues for you where you hold PDJT blameless.

My apologies for striking such a nerve. Carry on with your PDJT ranting. I'm always partial to how Putin is controlling everything. That's a classic.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The lead story in my NYT news feed this morning was about CFR, well, not so much about the number itself but about using it to compare deaths in the US to the those in the rest of the world. The hypothesis of this endeavor, no surprise, is to announce that the US "has suffered from the pandemic more than any other country." The author, at the end of his piece then allows that we really don't know what the death rate in the US or anywhere else right now, that will take a while. So, comparisons like this may not be accurate. Face palm.

Meanwhile, Governor Desantis is rescinding his EO that closed bars in the state of FL that did not serve food in mid-March. He cited as one of the reasons to do this is both declining COVID metrics state wide and especially S. FL and, a man with a brain and leadership skills, "observational experience." He noted yesterday in a press conference announcing bars would be allowed to reopen very soon (it happened this morning) that gyms, restaurants, theme parks and retail shops, all with the same number of customers that a bar might have, some where alcohol consumption takes place, have been open for a couple of months and none of them have been identified as venues that are spreading SARS-CoV-2. Oh, and Fort Lauderdale has approved the immensely popular S. FL Boat Show that is an annual event here. The announcement included caveats that COVID precautions will be implemented by event sponsors and vendors.

Bars can reopen with 50% capacity. What's interesting is that about 30% of booze only establishments, submitted and were approved for food services. They may only have set up a hot plate in a closet and served apps but, hey, it was food. Again, PH officials haven't found any evidence that open restaurants that also served alcohol or the bars that worked around the EO by serving a cheese and crackers plate weren't sources of viral spread. Desantis sighted the "observational experience" as another reason for canceling his EO that closed FL's bars.

In some regions, "observational experience" is replacing, a better choice might be contextualizing, data which is being shown to be more and more unreliable as single source guide posts for the establishment/disestablishment of COVID mitigation measures. Now, it appears that isn't happening in Michigan where a clearly political position has been staked out by Governor Whitmer regarding school opening and playing HS and college sports - schools aren't opening for in-person learning and, nope, can't play sports. I guess it will take a while for stupid to be replaced by sensible in some places.

[iam416]

The hypothesis of this endeavor, no surprise, is to announce that the US "has suffered from the pandemic more than any other country." The author, at the end of his piece then allows that we really don't know what the death rate in the US or anywhere else right now, that will take a while. So, comparisons like this may not be accurate. Face palm.

The problem with this analysis -- I mean ONE problem with this analysis -- is if the NYT turns it inward and compares states then the blue states look like absolute fucking disasters. New York and New Jersey are STILL the states with the most deaths. Meanwhile, the CFRs in the hated states of Georiga and Florida are low. But, that's a story they'd NEVER write. If they want to talk about Florida, it's OMG!! -- look at the CASES!

In some regions, "observational experience" is replacing, a better choice might be contextualizing, data which is being shown to be more and more unreliable as single source guide posts for the establishment/disestablishment of COVID mitigation measures. Now, it appears that isn't happening in Michigan where a clearly political position has been staked out by Governor Whitmer regarding school opening and playing HS and college sports - schools aren't opening for in-person learning and, nope, can't play sports. I guess it will take a while for stupid to be replaced by sensible in some places.

We're slowly getting there. But a lot of people are still paralyzed with fear from the NY/Italy April Covid spikes. What they don't seem to understand is that that was the absolute worst of it. We're nowhere close to that. Our cases more than doubled what was happening in April and our deaths never came close to the highest 7-day averages in April -- fuck - they weren't even HALF the highest averages.