Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oh yeah. I forget that Cornell is an Ivy.

Burn in hell. Or Michigan. Whatever. Same thing.

[Jeff Buchanan]

COVID: Yes, I know, who cares...... and you'd be right. Most governments and their PH agencies world wide are moving past the hysteria of the past associated with SARS2 and it's variants (BA,2. X.X.X the current predominant one globally and in the US). Even epidemiologist that still talk about the "mysterious" behavior of SARS2 are being shown it's a fucking coronavirus, with a higher transmission and mortality rate than typical cold producing coronaviruses. And no question, there have been a lot of deaths from SARS2 and I don't want to make light of that. There is also no question that, over time, SARS2, while it will be with us probably forever, is going to become as manageable as the influenza virus.

Outside of China run by the Communists, governments, in general, aren't doing squat over the recent BA.2 variant that is seeing some low level transmission, much lower, in fact, than the past impact of a new variant (e.g., from Delta to Omicron). The folks are going about business pretty much as usual. If you look at the data - the important stuff - local viral prevalence (and you can see it by county US wide), hospitalization rates and excess deaths, the last two are stable (plenty of excess bed space) with the 7d average over the last 3w in the US and in most US counties of new cases is downward trending; trends are important, absolute numbers in isolation are not and neither are reports about them used to bash you over the head.

An interesting article appeared that asked "why don't we manage the flu like COVID?" Besides being a ridiculous idea, what I got out of it was that both the Influenza virus and SARS2 coronavirus behave in similar ways, the later being about 3X more transmissible and 6X more deadly - with both viruses causing similar excess death rates in vulnerable populations. That surprised me and, once again, highlights the fact that misusing data to make a generalized point can create false realities and for most of the world, that has been the case with this particular COVID pandemic.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine: I made an angry post yesterday related Lavarof's whining about the US sending MLRS systems to Ukraine declaring if the Russians want that sort of shit to stop, get you're fucking army out of that country.

Today, as I scan the news about Ukraine, it has become obvious to me that Lavarof's yammering is part of a very well structured and effective propaganda campaign coming from Moscow and designed to paint a story of a successful completion to what amounts to a Russian disaster in Ukraine. It's a foregone conclusion ..... or, you might as well give up now because we're going to grind Ukraine and all of you people supporting Ukraine down. It's an appealing meme and one that a lot of people who have been supportive of keeping Ukraine from falling victim to Putin's ruthless and unprecedent aggression are falling for.

Examples of this line of propaganda include the numerous stories of the Putin's version of the former KGB, the FSB - a political arm of the Kremlin - working to organize referendums within Russian occupied portions of Ukraine obtained post 2/24's invasion. The purpose of these would be to allow citizens to "vote" (yeah right) whether or not they want to become a part of Russia. Per the CTR I follow, resistance to this sort of shit, both active and passive, in Mariupol and Kherson as well as Mykolaiv (a city not fully occupied) is strong. Russian passports being offered? Fuck them, we don't want to be Russian citizens. We are Ukrainian.

I've called this theater of the absurd. Today's "theater" involves declarations by political sources that within occupied Ukrainian Oblasts, predominantly in SE and S Ukraine, that various industries, property and businesses will be nationalized by the Russian Federation. This would be something like the US, putting some poorly equipped military units with low morale in Quebec or any single Canadian Province, and announcing the US is going to nationalize your industries - seize them from private ownership. Can anyone not imagine the Québécois not just laughing hilariously at the sight of US soldiers on their soil declaring such non-sense? Armed French-Canadian citizens would follow to oppose it. That's what's happening in Ukrainian cities where such intent has been put forward.

Look, the Russians can talk about this but it is simply not possible given the level of military occupation required to pull something like that off with citizen rioting that would be very difficult to subdue conducted en masse. Just be aware of this kind of news reporting and recognize it as well oiled Russian propaganda suggesting Ukraine is done. Give it up. The reality is that while the Russian Army is achieving some incremental successes in the Donbas Ukrainian battle space, it is, according to military analysts, including Russian milbloggers, out of proportion to the cost of those gains. To prove a point, the EU parliament just banned registered Russian lobbyists from entering their building. The stated reason? To stop them from peddling lies and propaganda. Putin is good at this. Believe it. Ignore his lies and false realities.

[Obi-Jon]

Turkey is rebranding itself as Türkiye (pronounced "tur-key-YAY"). Trying to distract from its authoritarian dufus leader, the abject poverty, the Turkish prison style courting rituals, and the roasted bird that comes up on Google searches, this change is going to somehow rebrand the country in a positive way. I wonder if the national anthem will now contain "e-i-e-i-o". Maybe the Armenians will join the celebration.


https://www.newsweek.com/turkey-info...rs-ago-1712357

[crashcourse]

sussman trial served its purpose
lots of intersting testimony ammo for investigations i'm sure and the coming dachenko ttrial
Sussmans office having a "secure work environemnt" connection with FBI at perkins coie is odd. guess if your going to accuse others of colluding may as well have a collusion office with direct access to fbi

and just for some more fun

According to the AP


‘Vulnerabilities’ found in Dominion Voting machines used in 16 states: AP (bizpacreview.com)

gee what a surprise

[CGVT]

Jesus. No wonder your brain is mush. You need to wear a tin foil hat just to open that bullshit website.

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=129586

[Hannibal]

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[THE_WIZARD_]

heh

[AlabamAlum]

Just heard a politician, Representative Mondaire Jones, say to enact even more restrictions on guns, that if opponents filibuster, they will end the filibuster and if the Supreme Court finds the restrictions unconstitutional, that they will add judges to the Court until they have the numbers to have the Court affirm the restrictions.

A bit of a bit chilling admission to the lengths he and others are willing to go to subvert the process.

[Hannibal]

Jesus this MFer is on a roll...

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-desantis-to-veto-35m-tampa-bay-rays-facility-over-teams-anti-gun-statement??utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwtwitter

[Mike]

Just heard a politician, Representative Mondaire Jones, say to enact even more restrictions on guns, that if opponents filibuster, they will end the filibuster and if the Supreme Court finds the restrictions unconstitutional, that they will add judges to the Court until they have the numbers to have the Court affirm the restrictions.

A bit of a bit chilling admission to the lengths he and others are willing to go to subvert the process.

He went to Harvard so it all checks out.

[Da Geezer]

Oh yeah. I forget that Cornell is an Ivy.

Best line of the day.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jesus this MFer is on a roll...

https://www.dailywire.com/news/break...aign=dwtwitter

The Rays can leave Florida a lot easier than Disney can. And they've been looking around for a while. Would think Nashville or Vegas may give them a call.

[lineygoblue]

Just heard a politician, Representative Mondaire Jones, say to enact even more restrictions on guns, that if opponents filibuster, they will end the filibuster and if the Supreme Court finds the restrictions unconstitutional, that they will add judges to the Court until they have the numbers to have the Court affirm the restrictions.

A bit of a bit chilling admission to the lengths he and others are willing to go to subvert the process.

That's like Georgia being in charge of all the rules in NCAA football.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Just heard a politician, Representative Mondaire Jones, say to enact even more restrictions on guns, that if opponents filibuster, they will end the filibuster and if the Supreme Court finds the restrictions unconstitutional, that they will add judges to the Court until they have the numbers to have the Court affirm the restrictions.

A bit of a bit chilling admission to the lengths he and others are willing to go to subvert the process.

The filibuster will eventually go away IMO because the Senate will become so absolutely dysfunctional in the future that there will be no choice. There soon will be no moderates, willing to cross party lines for compromise, left in the Senate. You cannot expect either party to have a super-majority before passing ANY legislation.

People claim that requiring 60+ votes for legislation will encourage compromise. I think that notion put in practice has proven to be false and the opposite is actually true. Party leaders are happy to blame the minority party for blocking legislation. They're a scapegoat for inaction.

On a random note I looked into passage of the Clinton Crime Bill of 1994 which contained the 10 year assault weapon ban that expired in 2004. It passed with 61 votes and around ten Republicans voted for it. Inconceivable that would happen today. Republicans would've stuck together and the bill would've been filibustered to death.