Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

“Hulkamania is like a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert that is Macho Madness.”

[THE_WIZARD_]

“You will eat my rear rockets, and like it! Ohhhh yeahhh!”

[froot loops]

[iam416]

In actual news, the WaPo fact check folks begrudgingly had to call Chairman Joe a RECIDIVIST 4 Pinocchio liar for his brazenly mendacious race-baiting re Georgia. They should probably fact check their own paper, but this is a small miracle.

Must have killed them.

[lineygoblue]

So, if a young looking african american person walks into a liquor store and wants to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels, is it racist to ask them for ID?

[Ghengis Jon]

So, if a white guy living in a nearly all white community obsesses on imaginary pervasive anti-white racism through dog whistle questions, is it a case of bigotry to publicly laugh at him?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Decrying "cancel culture", the conservative movement's Pontiff calls for boycotts on a lengthy list of companies

"They rigged and stole our 2020 Presidential Election, which we won by a landslide, and then, on top of that, boycott and scare companies into submission. Never submit, never give up! The Radical Left will destroy our Country if we let them. We will not become a Socialist Nation. Happy Easter!"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-suggests-boycotting-ga-businesses-that-condemn-new-voting-law-we-can-play-the-game-better-than-them

[Ghengis Jon]

Sounds like someone broke the ears off his chocolate bunny this weekend.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think we need an end to the pandemic soon. It's spawning crazy talk and crazy acts.

Speaking of that, the lead story in my NYT's feed this morning was:

Declining infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have masked an increase in more contagious forms of the coronavirus, scientists say. As of March 13, the B.1.1.7 variant, which walloped Britain and is wreaking havoc on Europe, accounted for about 27 percent of new cases nationwide, up from just 1 percent in early February.

“The best way to think about B.1.1.7 and other variants is to treat them as separate epidemics,” one expert said.

I don't know how declining infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from coronavirus have masked this increase in more contagious forms of it but, whatever..... voodoo science.

My take is that

(1) In the face of the wide-spread vaccine roll-out in the US (3 M+/people/day are getting the vaccine) this subtle increase in case numbers - some 80% of it coming in the under 55 age group -shouldn't be concerning and this is regardless of the increase in B1.1.7 variants (the variant type that the UK hammered with an aggressive vaccination program anyway).

(2) Few are talking about this because it isn't burning, murdering, scary or sexy (there's a lot of that lately!!!) but if there is a "peak" it will have a zenith considerably lower than its recent predecessor and this rise-peak-fall routine with decreasing values for the peak and trough of the curve will continue for, well, no one knows. It's what virus epidemics and pandemics do as they are brought to heel.

Another interesting aspect of the SARS2 pandemic is that you'll recall the first goal post that actually made sense was to "protect the vulnerable." With the exception of some states, notably NY and NJ, the US did that pretty well BEFORE vaccines. Now, even better with vaccines. The important measures of the rates of hospitalizations and deaths among vulnerable over 65s are plummeting. You'd think that would be getting some press, right? Nope. We are fed lines as above. IOW, as the goal posts are approached, as a win is near, the goal posts get moved. Now we need to defeat the variants. BTW, every approved vaccine is demonstrating efficacy against them. That line was buried in the later parts of the story that lead off as above.

Get the shots. Get back to living.

[iam416]

As per usual, Jon ignores the outrageous race-baiting and lies from his beloved Chairman to focus on somethng Liney says. The thing I find fucking hilarious is that Jon claims he's not a Prog. After years of screaming hysterical "Russia!!!!! lies and now a complete and total refusal to criticize his beloved Chairman, it's almost impossible to conclude that he's anything but a Prog,

[iam416]

I think we need an end to the pandemic soon. It's spawning crazy talk and crazy acts.

Speaking of that, the lead story in my NYT's feed this morning was:

Declining infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have masked an increase in more contagious forms of the coronavirus, scientists say. As of March 13, the B.1.1.7 variant, which walloped Britain and is wreaking havoc on Europe, accounted for about 27 percent of new cases nationwide, up from just 1 percent in early February.

“The best way to think about B.1.1.7 and other variants is to treat them as separate epidemics,” one expert said.

I don't know how declining infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from coronavirus have masked this increase in more contagious forms of it but, whatever..... voodoo science.

My take is that

(1) In the face of the wide-spread vaccine roll-out in the US (3 M+/people/day are getting the vaccine) this subtle increase in case numbers - some 80% of it coming in the under 55 age group -shouldn't be concerning and this is regardless of the increase in B1.1.7 variants (the variant type that the UK hammered with an aggressive vaccination program anyway).

(2) Few are talking about this because it isn't burning, murdering, scary or sexy (there's a lot of that lately!!!) but if there is a "peak" it will have a zenith considerably lower than its recent predecessor and this rise-peak-fall routine with decreasing values for the peak and trough of the curve will continue for, well, no one knows. It's what virus epidemics and pandemics do as they are brought to heel.

Another interesting aspect of the SARS2 pandemic is that you'll recall the first goal post that actually made sense was to "protect the vulnerable." With the exception of some states, notably NY and NJ, the US did that pretty well BEFORE vaccines. Now, even better with vaccines. The important measures of the rates of hospitalizations and deaths among vulnerable over 65s are plummeting. You'd think that would be getting some press, right? Nope. We are fed lines as above. IOW, as the goal posts are approached, as a win is near, the goal posts get moved. Now we need to defeat the variants. BTW, every approved vaccine is demonstrating efficacy against them. That line was buried in the later parts of the story that lead off as above.

Get the shots. Get back to living.

You and I both know, Buchanan, that The Party wants a perpetual state of "pandemic" -- it's the easiest way for them to exercise their all-knowing control.

To be clear -- I think there are a lot of crazies out there on the right that fight tooth and nail against all government all-knowing stuff -- sometimes completely and totally wrong-headed. But, on the balance, I'd rather have people out there that are willing to stand up for personal liberty than not. I know The Left literally dreams of a President Xi/Chairman Joe like utopia where The State and The Party cure all ills. And I thank the powers-that-be that there are still a ton of people in the US who won't simply bend the knee to anything the Government says.

[iam416]

I'd also like to take this time to reiterate that you need an ID to get a vaccine shot and that you need to get avaccine shot to get a vaccine passport. So, any Vaccine Passport program is, according to Prog logic, per se racist.

I guess the more direct way to prove it is that white folks are more likely to get the vaccine that AAs. Therefore, based on obvious OUTCOME inequities, any Vaccine Passport program is per se racist.

Racism two ways over. Probably way more than that if I really put my Woke Overlord thinking hat on.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I brought up this story a week or two ago. This guy's firm became the single-biggest shareholder of Viacom but no one really knew that because he acquired his stake through a complex web of derivatives and swaps. No one really understood how much money Hwang was on the hook for should Viacom stock ever collapse.

****************

Trading at roughly $12 a little over a year ago, ViacomCBS’s stock rose to about $50 by January. Mr. Hwang kept amassing his stake, people familiar with his trading said, through complex positions he arranged with banks called “swaps,” which gave him the economic exposure and returns — but not the actual ownership — of the stock.

By mid-March, as the stock moved toward $100, Mr. Hwang had become the single largest institutional investor in ViacomCBS, according to those people and a New York Times analysis of public filings. The people valued the position at $20 billion. But because Archegos’s stake was bolstered by borrowed money, if ViacomCBS shares unexpectedly reversed he would have to pay the banks to cover the losses or be quickly wiped out.

On Monday, March 22, ViacomCBS announced plans to sell new shares to the public, a deal it hoped would generate $3 billion in new cash to fund its strategic plans. Morgan Stanley was running the deal. As bankers canvassed the investor community, they were counting on Mr. Hwang to be the anchor investor who would buy at least $300 million of the shares, four people involved with the offering said.

But sometime between the deal’s announcement and its completion that Wednesday morning, Mr. Hwang changed plans. The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but RLX, the Chinese e-cigarette company, and GSX, the education company, had both spiraled in Asian markets around the same time. His decision caused the ViacomCBS fund-raising effort to end with $2.65 billion in new capital, significantly short of the original target.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/business/bill-hwang-archegos.html

[Jeff Buchanan]

Wait, I forgot ....... late last week, health authorities in France halted the administration of the AZ vaccine to over 55s (a high vulnerability cohort) due to concerns about blood clots. For the record, there have been 30 identified cases world wide of blood clots causing death found in persons who received the AZ vaccine out of 18 M doses. No causality has been identified and more importantly there are no excess deaths due to blood clots between those who have received the AZ vaccine and those that haven't. Never mind that. Anti-vaxers are over-joyed at this news.

Sir, your heart needs a by-pass graft. It is failing and unless we do the procedure you will die. But, we've been prohibited from performing the procedure because during said procedure you might die. Oh, the probability of dying if we don't fix your heart is 95%. The probability of you dying from the procedure in the OR is 3%.

I think we need to be sure that we grant unlimited powers to government next time declaring these public health emergencies is being considered.

[froot loops]

Decrying "cancel culture", the conservative movement's Pontiff calls for boycotts on a lengthy list of companies

"They rigged and stole our 2020 Presidential Election, which we won by a landslide, and then, on top of that, boycott and scare companies into submission. Never submit, never give up! The Radical Left will destroy our Country if we let them. We will not become a Socialist Nation. Happy Easter!"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...tter-than-them

This dude keeps on promoting the lie that the election was stolen. He lost, he needs to get over it.