Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

I caught 3 minutes of the Bernie townhall last night. He answered a question about increasing rents. First, he always cites a homeless stat (something like 500,000) which to my mind is incredibly low and, frankly, the vast majority of them are surely a result of poor decisions or just being mentally fucked up. Second, he proposed a national rent control law.

But, yeah, he's a DEMOCRACTIC Socialist, not a real Marxist. LOL.

[lineygoblue]

Aw, darn ... Hillary is such a party pooper ....

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton-denies-she-could-be-bloombergs-vice-presidential-pick-oh-no

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Jeff Buchanan]

In good news among all the bad re COVID-19 (the cruise ship talk is so unrepresentative of the global picture for this disease), the genome of the virus has been mapped. That is the hard part of developing a vaccine for it. Not sure of the entire process by which each year's influenza vaccines make it to market - and it's a quick one - but this one will get fast tracked and be quicker.

The virus peaked in the 3d period around January 23rd. 85% of all persons in China known to have COVID-19 have mild, cold and fever like symptoms. 13% have moderate to severe symptoms, there is a 4% fatality rate in Hubei province. Outside of it the mortality rate is 0.4%. Symptom severity increases with age and complicating, co-morbid conditions with Cardiovascular disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Diabetes and Hyertension, in that order contributing to mortality. Not unexpectedly, there is a sharp rise in mortality in the presence of these co-morbid conditions and COVID-19 infection at age 80 and up.

COVID-19 is believed to be more infectious than SARS or MERS. OTH, containment is 10X more robust with COVID-19 than it was with either of the other related coronaviruses. The good news here is not intended to completely mitigate the risks associated with this virus. There are still unknonws, e.g., how the virus will mutate and whether or not those mutations are a good thing or bad, i.e., it will either burn itself out with mutations or produce more virulent infection and symptoms. Right now, experts favor the former and this is mostly because of the prompt and effective Chinese interventions (you can ignore stories that say otherwise)...... only in Communist China applies.

I'm not an infectious disease expert but I'm a glass half full kind-of guy. With that in mind, my take is that COVID-19 will dissipate over the next 45-60d. What that means is that it will be like the flu season which is known to start in the US in late September, be infectious for about 3-4 months and then cases dramatically taper off. So, cases of COVID-19 first detected in mid-December will continue to decrease inside China through the end of March or April at the latest. You'll hear all kinds of yammering about 100 new cases here or there, infected persons traveling on aircraft and 10 people got infected. Having journalists track and report on global disease progression and believing their breathless reports is a waste of your time. The CDC and WHO have hundreds of biologists and PhD/MDs who are experts in infectious disease doing that. I read their reports and mostly ignore print and broadcast news.

[iam416]

DSL:

Have you made your peace with the Comrade Bernie nomination, or are you still holding out hope? Or are you a closeted Bernie Bro?

[Dr. Strangelove]

I'm holding out hope for a Biden comeback. But if it comes down to Bernie v. Trump, I may vote Bernie. I think he'll be totally ineffectual. Like his proposed law for nationwide rent control? Yeah...there's maybe 3 dozen Dems who would vote for that, tops. Ironically if Trump starts to look like he'll coast to victory it could be better for the Dem chances of keeping the House and picking up the Senate if the vote-splitters show up in force.

There was a poll that came today that showed McSally not doing very well in Arizona.

Bloomberg is the only "Dem" that I think I simply cannot vote for. He's Trump but competent.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Speaking only about Nevada I've been following Jon Ralston since at least 2016 (the guy knows the state well) and he's been reporting that early voting there has reached over 70,000 people. About 84,000 participated in the caucus in 2016 without early voting. I'm not sure how early voting in a caucus works exactly but significant enthusiasm there it seems.

[froot loops]

Anybody but Trump. Basta.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump naming Ric Grenell as Acting Head of DNI is a continuation of the trend that Trump prefers people good on tv to people who have substantive knowledge. And for the first time he has a slobbering loyalist overseeing the Intelligence agencies now.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Dr. Strangelove]

America getting to see why Bloomberg has tried to win the nomination through commercials rather than human interactions. Going horribly for him so far but who knows. He could jump 12 points tomorrow

[Dr. Strangelove]

Mayor Mike spent millions of dollars to be murdered on live tv

[Cody_Russell]

Debate is actually entertaining for once because they are attacking each other.

Bloomberg looks shaky.

[Whitley]

Debate is actually entertaining for once because they are attacking each other.

Bloomberg looks shaky.

Yeah. I think they all got their knives out for Bloomberg. Amy and Pete are desperate to connect with POC. Bloomberg is red meat/red flag in front of Bernie and Warren. Biden is out to prove he is not a member of the Walking Dead.

[iam416]