tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post3545827679455057678..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Want to get past the Roberts Court and restore Congressional oversight? First try looking outside the boxDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12017121328440341162020-03-11T17:26:47.316-07:002020-03-11T17:26:47.316-07:00Coronavirus: South Korea’s infection rate falls wi...<a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3074469/coronavirus-south-korea-cuts-infection-rate-without" rel="nofollow">Coronavirus: South Korea’s infection rate falls without citywide lockdowns like China, Italy</a>; South Korea had 7,513 Covid-19 cases as of Monday, with daily infections falling for a fourth consecutive day; Officials attribute the decrease to mass testing, improved public communication and the use of advanced technology<br /><br />I'd say the South Koreans have the best approach so far. And with their better data:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3065187/coronavirus-south-koreas-aggressive-testing-gives" rel="nofollow">Coronavirus: South Korea’s aggressive testing gives clues to true fatality rate</a>; With 140,000 people tested, the country’s mortality rate is just over 0.6 per cent compared to the 3.4 per cent global average reported by the WHOTCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80843911934558339012020-03-11T17:24:05.446-07:002020-03-11T17:24:05.446-07:00and...
onward
onwardand...<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54294434779581405182020-03-11T16:38:50.364-07:002020-03-11T16:38:50.364-07:00Here's an interesting historical chart showing...Here's an interesting historical chart showing two separate U.S. cities and their reaction to the 1918 flu epidemic... and the resulting mortality rate from the flu. Something for certain parties to consider....<br /><br />https://twitter.com/acatherwoodnews/status/1237882385946906625 <br /><br />AcaciaAcacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72784601501951662432020-03-11T16:23:09.858-07:002020-03-11T16:23:09.858-07:00Better an moron, Locu, than a heartless hack who a...Better an moron, Locu, than a heartless hack who assumes humanity is a horrible thing that would destroy itself if not for a vengeful God that threatens to punish anyone who dares have original thoughts and question the universe. <br /><br />AcaciaAcacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65966293121540041242020-03-11T15:48:58.913-07:002020-03-11T15:48:58.913-07:00locumranch:
leaving Larry_H and other similarly d...locumranch:<br /><i><br />leaving Larry_H and other similarly delusional 'gravity is a consensus hallucination' fact-users hoisted on their own petards <br /></i><br /><br />"Hallucination"? No, I said a different thing, in fact the opposite thing.<br /><br /><i><br />-- as I congratulate myself on the serendipitously good timing of my recent retirement.<br /></i><br /><br />We're as happy about your retirement as you are.<br /><br />Now, some of us are actually trying to work.<br /><br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42519053201164289662020-03-11T15:46:29.272-07:002020-03-11T15:46:29.272-07:00Acacia assumes that the modern medical provider un...<br />Acacia assumes that the modern medical provider unit is an infernal machine, devoid of human failings, scrupulously dedicated, free of familial ties, immune to illness, capable of indefinite, selfless & ceaseless function in the absence of sleep, food, rest, comfort, companionship or gratitude, and infinitely replaceable.<br /><br />This is an all-too-common delusion, one shared by many others when it comes to the Deep State bureaucracy, scientists, the academic elite and the protector caste.<br /><br />Assumers like Acacia are morons, all of them, who have placed inordinate faith in other flawed & fallible human beings, and they are the true idiots here.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06812045410916208141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9583160726862687522020-03-11T15:11:51.478-07:002020-03-11T15:11:51.478-07:00Not to be too pedantic, but the R0 of ebola is est...Not to be too pedantic, but the R0 of ebola is estimated to be less than 2, while Covid-19 has an R0 of around 2.2 or so, at least according to these sites. So Covid-19 is a bit more contagious than ebola, although not even in the ballpark of the measles or polio.<br /><br />https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4347917/<br /><br />https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-myths.html<br /><br />(Disclaimer: the only reason I know of the R-nought term is because we watched <i>Contagion</i> last weekend--a movie I <b>do not</b> recommend seeing at this time. Way, way too close to home, and with the vaccine being produced in unrealistic weeks instead of months to provide the "happy" ending. Will definitely edge you from "concerned" toward "panic" if you haven't already seen it.)A.F. Reyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08102355714883828348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46755216997646431192020-03-11T14:32:40.743-07:002020-03-11T14:32:40.743-07:00And yet, Tim, Ebola workers persevere in Africa vs...And yet, Tim, Ebola workers persevere in Africa vs a terribly contagious plague and they mostly prevail while keeping themselves remarkably safe with very basic and RE-USED containment suits.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56189517939606030902020-03-11T13:54:41.988-07:002020-03-11T13:54:41.988-07:00I'm reminded of perhaps the most compelling ca...I'm reminded of perhaps the most compelling case ever to study an infectious agent. A bunch of Swiss gastroenterologists were at a medical meeting in Mexico City. They knew the risks. They took every precaution. They were by God SWISS gastroenterologists. After a week they all had some degree of GI symptoms. This parallels exactly my experience traveling in Egypt. You can try to reduce your risk of infection but in an adverse environment you will not prevail. An ER is just such a place. Masks will not keep you safe and full containment suits are not available.<br /><br />Most of my colleagues will take the risks involved and do their best.<br /><br />Happy to be retired.<br /><br />I commend Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year to those with literary inclinations. It has a great deal to say. And is a bit of a literary mystery too, but that's another tale.<br /><br />T.Wolter<br /><br />Not sure how to parse the question of whether we physicians are idiots. In some ways, most certainly. But often noble idiots.Tacitushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17007086196578740689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50487629932862439812020-03-11T13:53:58.093-07:002020-03-11T13:53:58.093-07:00Locumranch,
I am curious; do you mean to say that...Locumranch,<br /><br />I am curious; do you mean to say that 70+ million divorced working aged men have been screwed over by US society, but the corresponding 70+ million divorced working aged women have not?the hanged manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13908513776709889563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22621694665618900882020-03-11T13:49:10.729-07:002020-03-11T13:49:10.729-07:00Oh, our shrill fecal-spewer is still reading every...Oh, our shrill fecal-spewer is still reading everything and trying frantically to slip in, every day, wasting about three seconds of my time, per 24 hours. (I've been sanitizing for YOUR protection!) Were he to have emulated Locum's or Treebeard's or jim's or TCB's or Zepp's critical approaches -- varied and in some ways offensive, but none of them fecal -- he might not have been the only voice banned in 5 years. David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45145964476218880692020-03-11T13:43:59.028-07:002020-03-11T13:43:59.028-07:00Gosh, that was enteraining and well-expressed... a...Gosh, that was enteraining and well-expressed... almost poetical(!)... jibber-jabber! It bore absolutely no overlap with anything even remotely-true... but then neither does Lord of the Rings. Locum should take up fantasy writing in retirement!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7499136989332252472020-03-11T12:09:17.528-07:002020-03-11T12:09:17.528-07:00Locu's Legion will likely fall to COVID-19. Af...Locu's Legion will likely fall to COVID-19. After all, it's a known fact that the virus has an increased impact on men and those suffering from cardiovascular disease... and divorced men who no longer have women to "nag" them into eating healthier or regularly have a multitude of unhealthy habits that will raise their mortality rate even as they refuse to take intelligent actions like regularly washing their hands and the like because they "know better" than the educated liberals. <br /><br />His claims that older medical personnel will fall more easily ignores one essential fact: many of these older medical personnel are going to do everything in their power to ensure they don't get infected in the first place through the use of gloves and masks to minimize the chance of the virus spreading to them.<br /><br />For someone who says he was a doctor, he sure seems to be unaware of what physicians and other medical personnel do to avoid infection... or thinks that they are all idiots. <br /><br />AcaciaAcacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33732119380240312702020-03-11T12:00:25.823-07:002020-03-11T12:00:25.823-07:00Robert here,
Quick comment after reading the firs...Robert here,<br /><br />Quick comment after reading the first chapter of <i>The Counter-Revolution of 1776</i>.<br /><br />Interesting material, but the first time in a long time I've had to work this hard to understand a book. Horne is a very erudite author and it shows. For example, without looking it up, how many of you know what "desuetude" means? This is a book written for other historians rather than the general public.<br /><br />Lots of endnotes. This isn't an author who expects you to take his word for things.<br /><br />First chapter is just laying the groundwork, but it seems to be solid so far — including mentioning other factors at work in the widening gulf between the colonies and Britain. Not an expert, but his comments on indigenous relations matches what I've learned elsewhere. <br /><br />Not certain it's worth buying, unless you're a professional historian, but definitely worth getting from the library.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21895749519114652312020-03-11T10:32:18.191-07:002020-03-11T10:32:18.191-07:00Robert, re: Deborah Blum's book The Poison Squ...Robert, re: Deborah Blum's book The Poison Squad I read "The Poisoners" some time back, and it was very well done. I'll look for a copy of this.<br /><br />A lot of high school libraries don't have Upton Sinclair. More and more, the omission is showing in our public discourse.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28690096863393205692020-03-11T10:25:02.217-07:002020-03-11T10:25:02.217-07:00As I've been describing the US healthcare syst...<br />As I've been describing the US healthcare system's shift to 'Just-In-Time' inventory & its imminent collapse to y'all for many many years, Deuxglass's revelations about France's FUBAR national health system comes as no surprise, even though an overly-optimistic Deuxglass still underestimates the extent of the secondary healthcare crisis coming his way.<br /><br />What do I mean by 'secondary crisis' ?<br /><br />The 'secondary crisis' is what happens when the pandemic impacts his elderly Boomer Generation healthcare providers (MDs. RNs, EMTs, etc) in a direct & sickening fashion, then it will be every man. woman & child for his/her self -- a SHTF scenario any which way you slice it.<br /><br />Along with the other 70+ Million divorced working aged men who have been seriously screwed over by US society, I will shed no tears if & when the politically correct do-nothings fall victim to the implacable & indifferent predator that is non-consensus reality.<br /><br />I think I'll just sit tight and see which way the 'cookie crumbles' -- leaving Larry_H and other similarly delusional 'gravity is a consensus hallucination' fact-users hoisted on their own petards -- as I congratulate myself on the serendipitously good timing of my recent retirement.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06812045410916208141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88801572193707241332020-03-11T10:23:00.470-07:002020-03-11T10:23:00.470-07:00Larry, an estimated 10% of Sanders voters in 2016 ...Larry, an estimated 10% of Sanders voters in 2016 voted for Trump. I have a variety of words I use to describe them, usually modified with "abject." I like to think that by now, most of them have looked at Trump and gone, "Holy Mother of Fuck, what were we THINKING?" But that doesn't mean they've rejoined the Democratic Party. Biden does have more cachet with workers and black voters than Hillary did, which undercut Bernie's support, and at least some of the anti-Hillary vote was just that--animus towards her. Mostly undeserved, in my opinion, but real nevertheless. Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14727568939677296832020-03-11T09:06:35.893-07:002020-03-11T09:06:35.893-07:00"Sounds like Vonnegut was describing the prie..."Sounds like Vonnegut was describing the priesthood around a cult Messiah."<br /><br />Of course he was. Speaking about "revolutions" not enlightenment. The latter CAN be a feature of some revolutions, like Darwinism. But Marxism and other cults are also like that.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80802055080927290192020-03-11T07:36:58.191-07:002020-03-11T07:36:58.191-07:00schadenfreude...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/e...schadenfreude...<br /><br />https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Pres/Maps/Mar11.html#item-5<br /><i><br />This week, COVID-19 officially reached D.C. At least one person who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last week has been diagnosed, and several prominent Republicans who interacted with this person have now quarantined themselves, most notably Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and—in today's reminder that karma is apparently real—Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who just last week mocked COVID-19 by wearing a gas mask while voting for emergency disease prevention funding. Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) is also on the quarantine list. Trump himself was at CPAC, and though he was apparently not in the vicinity of the COVID-infected individual, he did interact with Cruz, Gaetz, and Meadows. That would suggest that, just maybe, Trump oughta get himself tested. Thus, far, however, he has refused because he says he's "feeling great."<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7469197224773431312020-03-11T05:58:44.580-07:002020-03-11T05:58:44.580-07:00I found this an interesting part of a post-mortem ...I found this an interesting part of a post-mortem on Tuesday's primary. I'm talking about the notion that some of Bernie's 2016 support was from <b>conservatives</b> who saw him as their preferred alternative to Hillary. Those people seem to be Trumpians now.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/opinion/sanders-trump-biden.html<br /><i><br />...<br />A crucial bloc of Sanders’s 2016 voters is no longer a part of the Democratic primary electorate. The remnant of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party that in 2016 voiced its hostility to Clinton by voting for Sanders has now turned to President Trump. Many of these former Democrats — particularly men who hold right-of-center views on race, gender and immigration — cast far fewer of their ballots for Sanders and his progressive policies this time around, compared with four years ago, when they shied away from Clinton’s perceived elitism, her ties to Wall Street, her social liberalism and the fact that she is a woman.<br />...<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27328734197022947282020-03-11T05:06:37.784-07:002020-03-11T05:06:37.784-07:00Dr Brin:
I STILL have never met a Minnesotan I di...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />I STILL have never met a Minnesotan I didn’t like.<br /></i><br /><br />I like the one I married. :)<br /><br />And as long as Tim is "here", I want to let him know how grateful I am for the...I probably can't legally use the word "advice", but the helpful hints he posted when my wife was threatened by an undiagnose-able tick-borne illness. We're cautiously optimistic that she received a treatment that worked in January.<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48679187710030792892020-03-11T05:01:52.911-07:002020-03-11T05:01:52.911-07:00Dr Brin:
LH: I nominate Tim for Number Two! If he...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />LH: I nominate Tim for Number Two! If he’ll wake up.<br /></i><br /><br />Tim W is currently operating as #3 in the <b>other</b> direction, explaining the facts of life to us Enlightenment dreamers, no matter how stupid or pig-headed we are. Which is a useful function, but not part of the revolution.<br /><br />What's needed in the Vonnegutian sense is what you've been asking for--someone who has the ear of those who actually make things happen and can vouch for you being worth their time to listen to.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74803758583849989992020-03-10T23:37:32.883-07:002020-03-10T23:37:32.883-07:00Acacia H,
I've noticed the repeating messages...Acacia H,<br /><br />I've noticed the repeating messages here too. First time felt odd, but then I paused and tried to remember that our host isn't writing blog entries FOR us. At the comment level that is more true, but not at the blog level.<br /><br />He has a job to do right now in promoting his book and the message it contains. Especially if there is to be a part II.<br />I expect repeats at the blog level and references to the book within comments. Book name in ALL CAPS.<br />That's part of the biz.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47468276668515077002020-03-10T22:19:08.368-07:002020-03-10T22:19:08.368-07:00Larry,
Progressive Democrats desperately need to...Larry,<br /><br /><i> Progressive Democrats desperately need to get a cast like that together. </i><br /><br />Oh my. Please don't.<br /><br />Progressive geniuses think we are designable. We aren't.<br />They think they are bright enough to know how to do it. They aren't. No one is. Ever.<br /><br />If there is one thing the 20th century should have hammered into our brains it is this lesson.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91533264169942926322020-03-10T22:13:37.021-07:002020-03-10T22:13:37.021-07:00Sounds like Vonnegut was describing the priesthood...Sounds like Vonnegut was describing the priesthood around a cult Messiah.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.com