A Graphic History of Pandemics
Why You Shouldn’t Trust Anyone Who Claims 80 Percent of America’s Drugs Come From China
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Thus spake one of the leading lights of statistics in the 20th Century, George E. P. Box
We Are 100 Times Safer Now Than In Early March: Here is the Math.
Gonna start pulling an occasional post from the archives. This one’s evergreen, from 4/15/10.
Ed Morrisy has a GREAT article over at Hot Air.
The best takaway …
Rights cannot be confiscatory in a society that respects the individual right to property. That’s why none of the enumerated rights in the Constitution involve confiscation. Americans have the right to free speech, but they do not have the right to demand publication in a newspaper, nor do they have the right to demand that other people listen when they speak. The right to free expression of religion does not involve occupying someone else’s church and using it to your own ends. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but you do not have the right to demand free or publicly financed weaponry. All of those examples involve confiscating someone else’s property or services, whether done through the government or by force individually.
That brings us to the notion of the “right” to health care. As human beings, we want to see people succeed to the point where they can feed, clothe, and care for themselves independently, as that establishes true personal freedom. However, none of us have the right to confiscate the services of a doctor or nurse without their consent, and without their ability to set a price for their time and expertise. We don’t have the right to walk into a grocery story to demand apples when we’re hungry, either, although we should have access to the market without bias when we can properly compensate its owner for the goods.
a few things said better than I can.
Can we KEEP them set aside please? Coronavirus: 10 Public Safety Regulations Set Aside in the Name of Public Safety
Coronavirus Puts Counterproductive Regulations Into Perspective
two really good quotes:
“In just ten days, we discovered that neither the tampon issue, nor the participation of transsexuals in the Olympic Games, nor the climate emergency were real problems, nor emergencies, nor anything of the sort. They were just fictitious problems, the pastimes of a generation that hadn’t known tragedy.” — Itxu Diaz, National Review.
Via Ricochet, which has further thoughts worth reading: “This crisis will be resolved by truckers running the long haul on deserted highways, doctors and nurse working double shifts in scavenged PPE, grocery store and gas station employees keeping services and food available, utility and telecom workers keeping a strained system functioning, grad students and other researchers poring over data and running countless tests in hopes of giving us an advantage, and ordinary people trying to follow often-contradictory guidance and do the right thing while facing a locked-down economy. At the top, we have leaders whose every move is scrutinized and fraught with potential peril – there might not be any good choices, just bad and not so bad. There is no room for our useless media and most of the commentariat. Activists can either pitch in or get lost. We no longer have time for indulging the delusion that they matter.”
This month I’ve been reminded of the old Ben Rhodes quote. Rhodes was a Deputy Advisor for the NSA in the Obama Administration and will always be remembered (at least by ME) for saying “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old… They literally know nothing… We created an echo chamber… They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
And so it is with the COVID-19 coverage to which we’ve been subjected of late. First, there’s almost ALWAYS one word missing from coverage – “reported.” There’s a WORLD of difference between the number of actual COVID-19 cases and those being reported. And that difference effects virtually every calculation and resulted derived therein. And so starting 13 days ago there was this: THEY WANT A STAMPEDE: Distortion and fear: the MSM won’t quit doing this, because they think (know?) it works. Which kinda led to this: THIS SHOULD* BE THE END OF ANY LEGISLATION BASED ON COMPUTER MODELS: Inaccurate Virus Models Are Panicking Officials Into Ill-Advised Lockdowns.and even casual observations like this: YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: What the Media Isn’t Telling You About the United States’ Coronavirus Case Numbers. Eventually we started getting work like this: ALL MODELS ARE WRONG. SOME MODELS ARE USEFUL. But to be really useful, models must be based on accurate data, and a clear understanding of the processes being modeled, two things nobody has for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. ARE COVID-19 MODELS A SOUND BASIS FOR PUBLIC POLICY?. TL:DNR: No.
I could go on but am trying to stay away from the aggregating. But in THIS case I’ll make an exception.
My FAVORITE headline: Assume a Spherical Cow of Uniform Density in a Frictionless Vacuum.
Coronavirus: The Wrong Numbers. Will the media ever admit the failure of doomsday projections?
How Misinformation About the U.S. Needing ‘1 Million Ventilators’ Spread.
Grocery Workers are Beginning to Die of Coronavirus. The reporter tells us that at least four grocery store workers have died from Covid-19. Here is some quick math. About 2.5 million Americans work in grocery stores. About one in every 30 thousand Americans has now died of Coronavirus. Taking the simplest route, you would expect approximately 83 grocery, or 2.5 million/30 thousand, grocery store workers to have died of the virus.
Then we segue into this: WHEN IS A CORONAVIRUS DEATH ACTUALLY A CORONAVIRUS DEATH? Good question, raised by Julie Kelly of American Greatness. The answers are about as clear as a gallon of Mississippi River mud flats water.
I have more but I’ll assume I’ve exhausted your patience already. More after Easter?
Week two of the Great Hunkering. Some observations
Self-protection is all over the place. Went through a neighborhood yesterday. Woman in shorts and a tank top out playing with her dog while her next door neighbor was mowing the lawn – in sweatpants, long-sleeved sweatshirt, ski mask, rubber gloves and a shower cap.
Lyft users are STILL the worst. Thrice in ten days I’ve had passengers put the destination address in the app as the pickup point. And we don’t get paid for those snafus.
Mt Carmel Hospital is a sprawling 77 acre campus with a LOT of doors. Pick one! IF you put in an address it MIGHT take me to YOUR door, but it’s just as likely to take me to any of the others OR simply the middle of that 77 acres. This applies to warehouses, shopping centers, and mega-churches, among other similar locations. MOVE THE PIN! And Lyft – educate your users.
Had the Licking County Sheriff called on me last week. Woman tried to enter my car without requesting a ride. Left her shopping bags in the back. I removed the bags and drove away. She accused me of theft. Not a fun afternoon.
Been doing the Uber Eats thing as well. Tried it several years ago when it was first offered. Didn’t care for it but it’s FINE if that’s ALL you’re doing. McDonalds was the worst then and they’re STILL the worst. I don’t accept them. And ice cream places. I cannot envision a sundae delivery going well for ANYBODY. Had a Starbucks order yesterday morning. Fifteen cars in line ahead of me. At just two minutes a car that’s a 30 minute wait that I don’t get paid for, so I cancelled. People – just THINK a little before placing that order. Many of the local places I’m delivering for are trying to maintain SOME cash flow and I’m glad I can help them try and stay afloat.
Managing to keep my income where it was but I know a lot of folks are hurting. Most of my passengers are health care, food service or grocery workers or customers. COTA is limiting buses to 20 people at a time so I’m getting some of those.
More next week if warranted. Hi Kim.
posted this a few years back. Now seems like as good a time as any to post again. What’s in my playlist today:
| Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread) | Frank Sinatra |
| Fools Rush In | Keeley Smith |
| Fooled Around And Fell In Love | Elvin Bishop |
| Why Do Fools Fall In Love | Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers |
| Won’t Get Fooled Again | Who |
| Chain Of Fools | Aretha Franklin |
| What A Fool Believes | Doobie Bros |
| Fool In The Rain | Led Zeppelin |
| The Fool On The Hill | Beatles |
| These Foolish Things (Remind me of You) | Frank Sinatra |
| Everybody Plays The Fool | Main Ingredient |
movies over at Flickchart.com. Just wrapped up a re-watching of the Thin Man series. Interesting to see the changes after the implementation of the Hayes Code.
Next up? How about a Fritz Feld Film Festival??!
…no …. just no. Probably wasn’t appropriate LAST time so we’ll just end it now. But a little aggregating from the maths department.
Seattle To Make Math Instruction All About Race, Downplay Right And Wrong
WHY CAN’T LIBERALS DO ARITHMETIC?: And why don’t they know how many people live in the United States? Power Line points out that Bernie Sander’s press secretary asserted on Twitter that 500 million Americans “go bankrupt from medical debt every year.” Good grief. That is far more bankruptcies than there are Americans. Power Line points out that only about 750,000 personal bankruptcies occur annually from any cause.
and if you only follow ONE link, it should be THIS one: The Dreaded Red Squamish.
with apologies to Gabriel García Márquez.
I was there at the start. Well, the the explosion anyway. It “started” in ’74. I didn’t pick it up until ’77. College. Roommate Wareham. It was a time of D&D players disappearing down sewers, day care Satan worshipers and even a young Tom Hanks was getting into the act. After about a dozen years of SERIOUS immersion I stopped cold turkey. Gave away ALL of my figs, ALL of my scenarios and over ten years of Dragon Magazines.
Fatherhood drew me back in. Started out simple enough – with Dungeon! And I thought that would be it. Fast-forward two decades. The Boy is still playing. And eventually asked me to join his group. Bring an old school flavor to people who only knew 5e. Wasn’t sure at first but join I did. It was AWESOME. He had a nice cadre of friends and a regularly scheduled game night. He and a fellow DM switched back and forth running their respective campaigns. After about a year I asked if I might work in as a third option. They agreed and it was AWESOME too. I learned. They learned. We used my setting as kind of an XFL to test some new home brew stuff (xp allocation, initiative, etc.) But then life intervened and I had to pull back.
It’s been over a year. He’s moving to Mexifornia soon so the odds of working back into his game are nil. But I’d like to start my OWN game back up. Like in the old days. A handful of friendly dedicated players who could be counted on to attend, immerse and enjoy. But I have NO idea how to make those pieces fall together. So I’ll let it simmer. And keep my eyes open for opportunities.
But it’s taking longer to recover than I thought it would. Hopefully back to 100% by tomorrow morning. Then I can resume making notes and spewing drivel. I do NOT want to return to aggregating … but in the meantime – a few more odds and ends ccentered around education.
‘Specialization Is for Insects’
Checking the Fridge for Leftovers 
