Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

The costs aren't going down any time soon. That'll be a problem for The Chairman for awhile. Amazingly...and I really do mean that -- I'm amazing -- Amazingly he still insists that his 3T BBB catastrophe is the key to bringing inflation under control. That's not quite as an egregious lie as the "voter suppression" lie the entire D party is peddling, but, still, JFC....

I'm convinced of several things here El Talento...not to state the obvious...but they are obvious...

1. Biden is not dealing with a full deck...the real power base of the D's is firmly in the hands of Progs and has been since the primaries of 2000 when the Sanderistas agreed to back Chairman Poopypants and the prog media began their coverup for Bunker Boy.

2. Biden is living in an alternate reality...which actually goes hand in hand with #1. Does he actually think his B³ plan would help inflation? Does he really think you can spend your way out of this mess? Do blended carrots actually taste just like pureed potatoes? Joe is living in an alternate reality and his "team"...which includes the softball throwing MSM...is there to assist. Worked for a while...but even that is unraveling.

3. The left knows their days in power are numbered and are going to try to grab as much as they can now...like the burglar who sets the place he is robbing on fire...grab what you can...in his case...it's BBB, Nationalizing elections, ending the filibuster so they can pack the courts and get statehood for DC...flooding the border with what they think will be their voters...watching Psaki cover for this trainwreck has at least been entertaining albeit dangerous.

The Dems already are making plans for 2024 and they don't include Chairman Poopypants and Heels Up. They are conceding the midterms it appears in order to regroup in 2024. At least I hope that is the case.

Anyway...back to more Putin is Hitler/Stalin/Mao talk...

[Jeff Buchanan]

FFS, for the first time in the years you've posted here, you wrote something cogent ..... well, sort of cogent. Then you ended with this.....

Anyway...back to more Putin is Hitler/Stalin/Mao talk...

Think about this, rewrite and resubmit and in the meantime,

STFU

[Da Geezer]

The costs aren't going down any time soon. That'll be a problem for The Chairman for awhile. Amazingly...and I really do mean that -- I'm amazing -- Amazingly he still insists that his 3T BBB catastrophe is the key to bringing inflation under control. That's not quite as an egregious lie as the "voter suppression" lie the entire D party is peddling, but, still, JFC....

True. On right-wing radio today, they are upset that Biden called Ducey a "stupid son-of-a-bitch." Before saying that, Biden clearly said to himself or his handlers ..."inflation is a good thing.." That is what I worry about. I have no confidence that Biden understands fundamental economics. If you are borrowing trillions at 3%, I can see where policy-makers might see 7% inflation as a good thing.

[crashcourse]

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SAYS WORKING WITH UKRAINE TO MAKE SURE RUSSIAN FORCES SHOW VALID PROOF OF VACCINATION BEFORE INVADING UKRAINE

so we got that going for us

so S-P 500 has almost doubled in the last 5 years

2 of which are of a covid ridden but also stimulus of 5 trillion thrown in

market had to correct eventually.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, like yesterday, it clawed itself out of a big hole to go up nearly 100 points mid-day but fell 300 in the last hour of trading to end down 67. I've never seen anything like this. I've gone from wetting my pants over it to yawning. There's no telling what's going to happen in the next couple of months.

The fed is sending mixed signals but I can't image something close to a 1% hike in the Federal Funds rate spread out over 2022. Powell really seems to be hoping inflation will cool. Too late for that IMO. I imagine Biden and his people are in the ears of Powell and the rest of the fed. They should be ignored because the only reason that's happening is to keep Biden's presidency form getting flushed down the toilet. The turd he's already laid is floating in the bowl.

Too much government spending on the table in Congress some of which is going to stupidly pass and too much COVID fear still present to keep consumers in their basements and banking loot.

[Jeff Buchanan]

As you've probably read, the FDA withdrew the EUA for two Monoclonal AB treatment drugs today claiming "studies demonstrated they didn't work." Here's what Desantis had to say about this:

"....... the Food and Drug Administration’s decision was made based on “a single, non-peer reviewed, non-clinical study that was actually done by a consultant for a rival company to the other two monoclonal antibody treatments. ... It’s really a reckless decision to be able to take this option away from patients.”

Let me start by saying, I don't have a lot of trust in the FDA when it comes to the approval process for COVID drugs. It's a federal agency with a good mission and a strong track record of reliability. So was the CDC before the pandemic and right now, I don't trust anything that comes from that place at all...... same for the FDA.

I'll be looking closely at this if I can get public access and I should be able to. To be continued ........

[foxhopper]

You are slowly starting to wise up doctor.

[Jeff Buchanan]

That didn't take long ...... JFC, the referenced study the FDA used to remove EUA authorization for two of the Monoclonal AB treatments (Elly Lilly, Regeneron's and a few others but not GSK's), was done at Michigan State University. That should tell you all you need to know ..... just kidding.

I read the study and yes, it is good but it is also correctly characterized by Governor Desantis as being a non-clinical, not peer reviewed study. How drugs work in vivo or by modeling as compared to in vitro in live human beings are not always the same. Jumping up and saying, nope, they don't work based on one lab based study is, well, not great, Bob.

TIFIW because while I know how to access stuff and read it, I'm not the be-all-end all expert in this area. My daughter, who is, would probably tell me, not so fast, Dad. This MSU study could be useful to the FDA. We do know that the monoclonal AB drugs worked well clinically (what docs reported anecdotally and what the drug makers proved in well designed human studies before they got EUA from the FDA) v. SARS-2 through Delta. Since Omicron hasn't been around very long, in-vivo, 2 armed, double blind studies aren't out there to prove monoclonal ABS work or don't work in humans. Given that, I think this is a bit premature. I won't speculate on the other Desantis suggestion that competitors were behind the MSU studies.

The FDA has been criticized in the past for acting too slowly. Not here it seems, although studies of Omicron and how it responds to vaccines and the human ABs generated by them has been ongoing for at least 2 months. The scientific information available about how Omicron evades ABs the human body produces is pretty good but, again, a lot of modeling goes on to predict these outcomes. It is accurate, however, to say the depth of knowledge about the structure of SARS2 is huge and growing exponentially every day. From that baseline, it's not without basis to know with some certainty that a particular drug previously demonstrably able to stop SARS2 from binding to a human cell and infecting it (the chain begins, then reproduction carries on and illness ensues), won't stop that from occurring in the case of a variant of SARS2.

TBC, the GSK Mab product works. It is in short supply while there's quite a lot of the other Mab products laying around. The US Government paid a ton of money to see that they were available and stockpiled. Well, that's money down the toilet for now. That to me is a driving factor to keep using it. Apparently side effects are rare. Mabs have very specific parameters for their use so, it's not willy0nilly hooking people up for infusions. Use, even when it may have limited to no effectiveness, seems to me to not be wasteful or irresponsible.

If you want to read through this it's very detailed. If you dig this stuff, it's worth a read:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01451

[Obi-Jon]

Question for the legal beagles -

Will this pass Constitutional muster like liability insurance on automobiles or will it fail like a voter poll tax?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/us/san-jose-gun-law/index.html

[THE_WIZARD_]

Jim Crow 2.5!!!

[Da Geezer]

Question for the legal beagles -

Will this pass Constitutional muster like liability insurance on automobiles or will it fail like a voter poll tax?


https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/us/sa...law/index.html

I doubt it. There is a constitutional right to carry a gun. The amendment reads "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I think any reasonable reading of the word infringed would include insurance-type items.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The shortages are pretty odd. I buy caffeine-free Diet Pepsi. It's so hit or miss. Like, I'll go weeks without being able to find it. I buy a ton of Gatorade Zero -- and that's been really hard to find. When I see it I have to stock up. Frozen potatoes! Finding Ore-Ida frozen potatoes of almost any variety is next to impossible.

It's not like I can't buy most of the shit I need and certainly I can survive without the items that aren't there, but it's annoying and, as noted, odd.

Now, if you had to buy a car right about now you'd definitely feel the pain.

Strike One: Pepsi

Strike Two: Diet Pepsi

Strike Three: Caffeine-free Diet Pepsi. JFC

I only grocery shop weekend mornings and in all honesty haven't noticed these issues. The only time the stores around me were literally wiped clean of entire sections was back in March/April of 2020 when everyone was panic buying. And I sort of look around even in aisles where I'm not buying anything.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Responding more generally the issue with new cars is one of the few shortages exacerbated by covid but not necessarily caused by it. People have known that chip manufacturing wasn't keeping up with demand for years.

[Dr. Strangelove]

True. On right-wing radio today, they are upset that Biden called Ducey a "stupid son-of-a-bitch." Before saying that, Biden clearly said to himself or his handlers ..."inflation is a good thing.." That is what I worry about. I have no confidence that Biden understands fundamental economics. If you are borrowing trillions at 3%, I can see where policy-makers might see 7% inflation as a good thing.

He was clearly being sarcastic. "No that's a great asset [for the midterms]. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch".

[Mike]

Question for the legal beagles -

Will this pass Constitutional muster like liability insurance on automobiles or will it fail like a voter poll tax?


https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/us/sa...law/index.html

Definitely the latter but it will take a while for it to make it’s way through the courts. If it becomes legal than I’m proposing BLM carries mandatory riot insurance.