Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

You and I fundamentally agree that the problem with getting shots in arms is "supply." I've chosen some different language and presentation in my posts. This article from Kaiser Health - a decent source of COVID information for fact checking - would seem to make the case for your presentation being the slam-dunk way to articulate a complex process and present it ..... IT'S FUCKING SUPPLY, FULL STOP, PERIOD. It really isn't nuanced at all.

https://khn.org/news/article/ramping-up-covid-vaccine-production-could-take-months-even-with-bidens-best-tool-to-pressure-companies/

[Jeff Buchanan]

In other Biden excesses news, not so fast .......

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security last Friday. A federal judge granted the request Tuesday, suspending President Biden's 100-day deportation ban.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960948480/federal-judge-blocks-bidens-100-day-deportation-moratorium

This makes sense because the deportation ban that Biden EO'd didn't make any sense and was nothing more than virtue signaling for the radical left's open boarders BS.

I've made it clear I support immigration reform and will support reasonable approaches to that end that Biden might offer. But deporting illegals according to the law isn't one of the problems that needs fixing. It works both as a deterrent to illegal crossings in the first place and as a means of dealing effectively with legal and illegal entry to the US followed by the convenient melding into sanctuary cities by those people. After a few months of hiding out in places that welcome them even though they are law breakers, these same people then disappear from required immigration hearings and fail to comply with what are very reasonable and easy to understand naturalization processes and procedures.

[iam416]

Just to be clear — and I know you know this. (1) it’s enormously complex to build the supply chains necessary to manufacture the required doses; and (2) distribution COULD be enormously difficult IF that system is stressed. So, if by some miracle we all of sudden had 500M doses then distribution would almost surely buckle. As it is, 8M per week isn’t close to stressing the system. So, at the moment, it’s supply. And that’s surely a result of complex issues, but the shots in the arm are supply limited.

It’s like The Wizard bench pressing. Slap 60 pounds on and he can do it easily. Ramp that up to 135 and he’s pinned to the bench.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I can easily do 80 dumbass...

[Ghengis Jon]

Got my mother the first of her vaccinations! Yay! Overall, handled well by the Genessee County Health Dept.. Appts were scheduled 10 per 15 min block. You sat in the parking lot - a cop monitored traffic at the door, bellowing out the quarter hour appts that would be allowed inside. Only they (and yours truly) were allowed in. Immediate covid routine with temps and such. All paperwork ready on clipboards, more staff available than there were inquirers. In less than 10, she was waiting with her coat off. 40 minutes later, she got her shot so bring a book or plan to stare numbly into your phone. I went during the peak hours and found the staff, including cop, to be almost Mr Rogers nice as they efficiently herded along a lot of slow moving people.

Shout out to the GCHD!

[Dr. Strangelove]

This GameStop stuff is amazing. There are lists going around of the stocks most shorted by big hedge funds that these people plan to target next. Already happening with AMC Theaters

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/hedge-fund-targeted-by-reddit-board-melvin-capital-closed-out-of-gamestop-short-position-tuesday.html

[lineygoblue]

Good on the GCHD for handling the vaccinations so well. They have a huge job ahead of them still.

[lineygoblue]

Queen Whitmer will be delivering the State of the State address for Michigan this week, and a preview shows that she will say she "hasn't forgotten about fixing the dam roads". Which, in case you've forgotten, means that she still wants the 170% gasoline tax increase to pay for it. A link to the story is on the Freep site, but they paywall all of the stories about her so (to protect her) they can't be linked or quoted unless you pay them for that privilege. So, with distribution of Covid vaccine running behind in Michigan, even though Michigan is the home of one of the world's top providers, in her mind, she's thinking about raising taxes on the people who can least afford it. She's definitely a credit to the Democratic party .. they never met a tax they don't like.

[Dr. Strangelove]

AMC Theaters stock was up around 250% earlier. Trading has been halted twice already. Several other stocks from the lists being circulated online are up huge. Gamestop was trading under $40 less than a week ago and right now it's around $270.

Rest of the market is so spooked by this that the major indices are all down big.

EDIT: So much trading is occurring that E*TRADE has apparently crashed

[iam416]

Chairman Joe, of course, supports the Teachers' Unions in their various fights to keep schools shut down. Jim Geraghty pillories this fucking nonsense: https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...everyone-else/

[Jeff Buchanan]

That's a great article ...... concise. If you just Google "Biden supports teacher's unions" you'll get a raft of local articles that demonstrate a lot of posturing by him and from within the Biden administration.

But by-in-large Governors who have their heads out of their asses are standing firm that schools must re-open .... followed by posturing. Nonetheless the thrust is to open schools. The evidence that I've seen in support of schools opening is overwhelming on a risk benefit basis. It's not even close. That kids in elementary school aren't full-on back in school is right up there with a list of crippling blunders the US has made in the past. There should be at the very least hybrid learning for middle school on up to high school. Colleges are a bit more tricky and there is more evidence that remote learning works there but, IMO, in-person learning there should be allowed more than it is now.

[CGVT]

This GameStop stuff is amazing. There are lists going around of the stocks most shorted by big hedge funds that these people plan to target next. Already happening with AMC Theaters

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/hedg...n-tuesday.html

My 23 year old son took a grand and turned it into 4k and got out. Ha!

[Hannibal]

That is a good NRO article. It's too bad that our society is so devoid of good, reasonable debate on the issues surrounding Covid-19 and, chiefly, the risk/reward tradeoffs of staying open versus lockdowns. The pro-lockdown crowd points to death totals, but does not acknowledge the peripheral data around those death totals, such as the average age of those losing their lives and the existence of contributing factors like diabetes, obesity, and compromised immune systems (due to being a cancer survivor, etc ). We have more or less put the lives of the entire country on hold to protect our most vulnerable 10%. The ethics and long term health effects of forcing our kids to miss a year or more's worth of birthday parties, graduation parties, family vacations, playdates with friends, and other activities that are a fundamental part of human development. have been left largely unexplored. Instead, we are just accepting that shutting kids inside the house for a year and letting them play Among Us for five hours at a time (because this is basically the only interaction that they get with their pals) is the safe play.

And so we end up with this:

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Elementary-school-students-behind-barriers-Canadian-Press-1200x841.jpg

And, we are already being conditioned to accept this as a permanent change to our way of life by articles warning us that a "return to normal" is never going to happen or encouraging us to adopt alternative customs to the handshake (e.g. bows, elbow bumps).

Britain is in lockdown #3. When does it end?

[Hannibal]

The Gamestop phenomenon is truly bizarre.

When it collapses back down to $19/share, expect to see loads of news stories about idiots who got into the buying frenzy and lost their life savings.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Gamestop phenomenon is truly bizarre.

When it collapses back down to $19/share, expect to see loads of news stories about idiots who got into the buying frenzy and lost their life savings.

The hedge fund that shorted the hell out of GameStop put out a release this morning saying they were done and out of it after yuuuge losses. However, the rumor has been that they're lying, they are trying to make people sell NOW, and that their contracts aren't actually up till Friday. So maybe it'll stay absurdly inflated till then? But this is wild.