[The Federalist] As U.S. state and local officials halt the economy and quarantine their communities over the Wuhan virus crisis, one would hope our leaders were making such major decisions based on well-sourced data and statistical analysis. That is not the case.
A scan of statements made by media, state governors, local leaders, county judges, and more show many relying on the same source, an online mapping tool called COVID Act Now. The website says it is "built to enable political leaders to quickly make decisions in their Coronavirus response informed by best available data and modeling."
An interactive map provides users a catastrophic forecast for each state, should they wait to implement COVID Act Now’s suggested strict measures to "flatten the curve." But a closer look at how many of COVID Act Now’s predictions have already fallen short, and how they became a ubiquitous resource across the country overnight, suggests something more sinister.
When Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins announced a shelter-in-place order on Dallas County Sunday, he displayed COVID Act Now graphs with predictive outcomes after three months if certain drastic measures are taken. The NBC Dallas affiliate also embedded the COVID Act Now models in their story on the mandate.
The headline of an NBC Oregon affiliate featured COVID Act Now data, and a headline blaring, "Coronavirus model sees Oregon hospitals overwhelmed by mid-April." Both The Oregonian and The East Oregonian also published stories featuring the widely shared data predicting a "point of no return."
#1
Maybe they panic because they understand how fragile the current social order is - who's better than then them: they've been actively breaking it since the onset of the Great Society.
#3
The lead guy on this is an Alaska Dem pol (see 'Act Now' about us page). A cursory exam of the participant bios revealed few actual medical professionals (possibly only one physician adviser/endorser), only geek modelers, accademia theorists, and grant seekers.
Jonathan S. Kreiss-Tomkins (born February 7, 1989) is a member of the Alaska House of Representatives. A Democrat, he represents the state's 35th district, which encompasses many Southeast island communities including Hoonah, Sitka, Kake, Klawock, Craig, Angoon, and Petersburg.
#5
Those official are not panicking. They're using the opportunity to garner unquestionable unconstitutional powers over the people. Its the Reichstag gambit.
#9
#7 hits on something. Assumptions used in creating any models - global warming, Wuhan virus, whatever - are only as good as the assumptions used in creating them and who actually is creating them. An opportunity exists, once the sky-is-falling panic passes and some normalcy returns, to draw attention to the pitfalls and questions re the accuracy of the models.
Posted by: York Harding ||
03/26/2020 14:29 Comments ||
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[BBC] Voice technologies using AI are being used to help combat loneliness in countries including Sweden and the UK. Should they be used more widely as coronavirus spreads?
"I thought at first it was a sign of insanity, speaking to a little thing like that and him talking back!" says 92-year-old John Winward of the first time he tested a smart speaker.
The former head teacher was one of a group of residents at an elderly care home in Bournemouth, England who recently took part in a half-year academic experiment designed to test if artificial intelligence voice technologies could help tackle loneliness. He was a fast convert.
"I was so surprised... it was such fun!" he says, explaining that several months later he remains an active user of his Google Home device. He asks the speaker for news and weather updates, music and audio book tips and crossword puzzle clues. He sometimes asks it to tell him a joke. "It keeps me sane, really, because it’s a very lonely life when you lose your partner after 64 years, and you spend a lot of time in your room alone."
Loneliness is a global problem, which scientists believe can be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being severely overweight. Young people as well as the elderly are at risk, and there are concerns that coronavirus-related lockdowns in cities around the world and self-isolation guidelines for those older than 70 will exacerbate the problem.
#5
The future is now. Especially every flu season. Social removal for men especially when in the presence of women. Never contact eyes. Don't speak unless spoken to first. Keep separate at least six feet. Always have someone else present to avoid harassment. No hug. No contact. The new normal for the industrialized socialist progressive world economy.
[NYP] The US will see a turning point in the battle to contain coronavirus sooner than expected, according to the Nobel laureate who correctly predicted when China would get through the worst of its crisis.
Stanford University biology professor Michael Levitt, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said his models don’t support predictions that the virus will wreak months or even years of social disruption or cause millions of deaths, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"What we need is to control the panic ... we’re going to be fine," assured Levitt, who correctly predicted early on that China would get through the worst of the outbreak by mid-February.
His optimistic report on China said the country would peak with around 80,000 cases and 3,250 deaths. He was not far off: China has reported 81,588 cases with 3,281 deaths as of March 24.
Now Levitt is looking at 78 countries that have reported more than 50 new infections each day.
He said he focuses on new cases ‐ as opposed to overall totals ‐ and sees "signs of recovery" in each of the places.
"Numbers are still noisy, but there are clear signs of slowed growth," Levitt said, without offering a concrete date for when the US may see its turning point.
The US has confirmed more than 46,000 cases, resulting in at least 593 deaths as of Tuesday afternoon, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Levitt acknowledged that not all cases have been detected in some countries, but their death tolls are on track with his findings, the outlet reported.
#6
Meanwhile, per the Johns Hopkins site, no Americans have recovered. Italy has over 10,000 recovered and Georgia (the country, not the Peach State) has 10 recovered, but nada for the U.S.
Am I missing something?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/26/2020 14:46 Comments ||
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#10
Oh dear, a brilliant chemist. My father was one of those. He saw interesting patterns in the stock market, on which he bet heavily on margin, making pots of money for a while. Unfortunately, people do not behave as consistently as chemicals, so he lost everything when it went down instead of continuing the upward trend. Let’s hope this one is smarter about the behaviour of crowds than my father was.
#12
Folks, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College is the supposed wizard whose extremest / apocalyptic model and assumptions served as the basis for our pilicynajers' decisions these past 6+ weeks.
Ferguson just admitted he was wrong.
Not by an inch or a foot but BY MILES.
TWENTY-FIVE FOLD.
Thank god the man has the decency to admit it.
Thank god it's not too late to course-correct.
[Insider] While you may think that antiseptic wipes or sprays are necessary to kill germs, there's actually a metal that kills germs on contact ‐ no cleaning supplies necessary.
Believe it or not, the use of copper for health purposes dates all the way back to Ancient Egypt, and scientists today are still learning about the amazing benefits of copper. Here's what you need to know.
Copper does kill germs
Copper has antimicrobial properties, meaning it can kill microorganisms like bacteria and viruses. However, the microorganism has to come in contact with the copper in order for it to be killed. This is referred to as "contact killing."
According to Edward Bilsky, Ph.D., Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, copper can kill germs in a few ways:
It disrupts bacterial cell membranes ‐ copper ions damage cell membranes or "envelopes" and can destroy the DNA or RNA of the microbe
It generates oxidative stress on bacterial cells and creates hydrogen peroxide that can kill the cell
It interferes with proteins that operate important functions that keep bacterial cells alive
The exact mechanism of how copper interferes with proteins in bacterial cells is not fully understood yet, but the current hypothesis is mis-metalation, thanks to the fact that copper is a stable metal.
"Mis-metalation is the ability of a metal to basically replace another metal," says Michael D. L. Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Immunobiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. "Copper can just replace some of the other metals that are present in some of these other proteins [in bacteria] and by doing so, it blocks the function of those proteins."
When you block a protein's function, it starts a bacteria-killing chain reaction. "By blocking the function of the protein, you block the function of the pathway. When you block the function of the pathway, you block the function of the organism, and then the organism is just dead in the water," says Johnson.
Copper can kill viruses and bacteria
Studies have shown that copper can kill many types of germs on contact. According to a 2015 study published in Health Environments Research and Design Journal, some of the common germs copper has been proven to kill are:
#6
Copper has long been used in anti-fouling paint for boat bottoms. It has a welcome tendency to kill marine organisms that otherwise like to attach themselves to boat bottoms and thereby degrade boat performance. Environmentalists don't like it but they don't like it when invasive species hitch rides on boat bottoms into new harbors either. Dunno how it could be used against coronavirus but if you count pennies instead of washing your hands you might still be OK.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/26/2020 13:15 Comments ||
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#7
A lot of the newer door hardware, crash-bars and vertical 'touch surfaces' in Hospitals are using a copper alloy, Lex.
Haven't seen counter-tops or furniture with that yet, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/26/2020 13:46 Comments ||
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[KhaamaPress] After the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistain as an independent state on 14 August 1947, Islamabad military strategists have focused on the idea of strategic depth in Afghanistan: the notion that in any war with India, the defense of Pakistain’s eastern borders (specifically Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... ) rests on its western boundaries with Afghanistan. This intended developing Afghanistan as an associated land to which Pakistain forces could departure in the occasion of war. The importance of strategic depth reduced in May 1998, when Pakistain created its own nuclear preventive. However, the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach... some elements Inter-Services Intelligence
Continued on Page 49
[Arutz 7] - I talked with Steven W. Mosher, an American expert on China and head of the Population Research Institute about this, the single most important political and cultural issue in the present global crisis.
Meotti: What doesn’t the West get about the Chinese regime?
Mosher: Even after the end of the current pandemic--which will, sooner than we think, end--China will not be looked upon the same way again. Its relationship with the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, will be fundamentally different. It will no longer be seen as merely an economic competitor, or even a strategic rival.
It will be seen as a hostile force to be confronted at every turn.
China will not give up its hegemonic aspirations and return to its previous status as a non-expansionist regional power. But it will no longer be aided in its quest for global domination by any country other than its handful of dictatorial allies whose dictators have, in one way or another, been paid off. China's Belt and Road Initiative will come to be seen not as the high road to riches, but as deceitful debt-trap diplomacy, not to mention a one-way ticket to Coronavirus hell.
Meotti: Why is this epidemic, as you said, "made in China"?
Mosher: With every day that goes by we learn more about the evil and incompetent regime that unleashed this horror upon the world. Whether or not the Wuhan virus leaked from one of its biolabs or not, Beijing deliberately concealed the outbreak for as long as two months. Although it was finally forced by the rising death toll to admit it had a problem, it has continued to dissemble about virtually everything else in the two months since.
Why wasn't the world warned in time? Estimates are that 95% of the infections in China, and almost 100% around the world, could have been stopped with timely medical intervention.
I am a frequent visitor to Italy, and have over the years traveled to all parts of the country, from Turin and Venice in the north, to Bari in the south. It pains me to learn that in northern Italy hundreds of elderly Italians are being denied ICU beds and ventilators, and are dying. They are dying because of the incompetence and evil of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Italy signed on to the same Belt and Road project, the only G-7 country to do so, on the promise that it would lead to prosperity. At the present time, however, China's New Silk Road seems to be a fast track to death.
The problem is not that there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens living in Italy, not counting illegal immigrants. The problem is that their government allowed the Chinese Coronavirus to reach epidemic proportions in China, and then allowed it to be spread around the world. The CCP could probably have not done a better job of "seeding" a global pandemic if it had been trying to.
...Let’s be crystal clear about one thing: Everyone who falls ill from the Chinese coronavirus, everyone who dies from the Chinese coronavirus, everyone who is denied medical care because the hospitals are treating Chinese coronavirus patients, everyone who loses a job, or loses weeks out of their lives because of a quarantine‐each and every one of those individuals is a victim of the Chinese Communist Party.
#1
America and the world will now move beyond the "China Dream," even if the Communist Party leaders there continue to cling to it.
The world will reassess its dependence on China for, among other things, prescription drugs and medical devices.
The Belt and Road Initiative will grind to a halt as China desperately tries to avoid a financial collapse.
The U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods will go back up when China defaults--as now it must--on Phase I of the trade deal it signed with President Trump.
Chinese investment in places like northern Italy, where PRC controls much of the textile industry will be reassessed.
The world will pull back from China.
As the world order reconstitutes itself after the current pandemic subsides, it will take a different shape. China will no longer be regarded as a responsible member of that order, because it has proven that it is not. Instead it will be on the outside, looking in.
Now that's optimism.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/26/2020 13:30 Comments ||
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[DefenseOne] The coronavirus pandemic has made vetting foreign investment more important than ever, officials say.
Top Pentagon leaders fear the decline in stock prices prompted by the coronavirus outbreak could lead to an increase in foreign investment in — and control of — U.S. defense companies.
“The foreign investment issue is something that I’ve been tracking for the last couple of years,” Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said during a Wednesday briefing at the Pentagon. “There’s no question that we have adversarial capital coming into our markets through the various needs.”
While concerns about foreign investment in U.S. companies are hardly new, Pentagon officials have become increasingly worried as the pandemic sends markets plummeting.
“We have tools to combat adversarial capital, like strengthening and expanding national security investment reviews under the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States … are more important than ever,” Jennifer Santos, deputy assistant defense secretary for industrial policy, said during Wednesday’’s briefing. “We simply cannot afford to let this period of uncertainty eat into reviews that for investments is shifting into hyper vigilance.”
Last year, the Pentagon launched an effort to combat Chinese investment in some niche technology sectors, including small drones. Under the so-called Trusted Capital Marketplace, defense officials would create a list of investors not backed by foreign financiers.
#1
We already have laws about this. We also have laws about felons carrying guns. None of them are enforced...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/26/2020 5:42 Comments ||
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#2
OTOH, lots of Chinese money is very fungible. And blood is thicker than water but money is thicker than blood.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/26/2020 5:44 Comments ||
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#3
And if you actually harm one bureaucrat's career over allowing a sale to Chinese, the rest of them --- in an excess of caution, will do an extra good job.
[fundera] - 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, 30% of small business fail in their second year, and 50% of small businesses fail after five years in business. Finally, 70% of small business owners fail in their 10th year in business.
...And these rates are consistent over time. This suggests, surprisingly, that year-over-year economic factors don’t have much of an impact on how many U.S. small businesses survive. The takeaway here is that you can pretty much bet on a 80%, 70%, 50%, and 30% survival rate across one, two, five, and 10 years in business‐no matter the year. It's Darwin all the way. The competition for an economic niche with limited carrying capacity with other businesses.
#1
If you survive the first two years you have proven your business model - which attracts deep-pockets competition who use their clout to either buy you out or force you out.
#7
The entire article is a sales pitch for their loans and consultation.
As much as I enjoy macro stats and people who go straight from college to the sales floor, I can't put much faith in this.
Because it isn't just competition with other businesses 'in its own niche' now is it? There is competition for access to capital - what this article is selling - Bass Pro is going to get its operating loan, Joe's Gun Shop in New Jersey isn't. Business compete with the insurance industry and their whims especially if the business is deemed high risk. Businesses compete with government, say The Council wants a statue of John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith put up in a district because chic de jour and they want to pay with a sales tax increase. Minor if you sell souviniers, big deal you sell cars. Suddenly two exclusive businesses not in the same niche are butting heads. Four weeks ago Bob the Shrimp Boat Captain was just shrimpin', now he competes with Big Trucking and the Government for diesel fuel. Taco Truck guy has to pay off his construction loan, wants to sell to the increased in truckers then Big Sandwich offers free meals and delivery, Big Trucking goes wow look at what we can save in food comp, and Taco Truck guy goes under because traffic is 25% of average.
And that is another thing, consumer behavior. Why go out, if you can even go out, to the steakhouse when Big Burger can bring it to your door, already paid for, and the phone dings to confirm delivery. The more people get used to not going to Thursday sportsball, the less likely they return.
And every one of those percentage points is a failure incurring usually massive debt. Sometimes good business just hit a rock, go ask a cattle trucker or a fracker, no matter the year bullcrap.
Furthermore, those failures show that running a business really isn't for everyone - just like fire fighting, or painting, or coding - so the good operators lost because nobody had Bat Soup Fever in their operating models, including the global medical providers, are real losses especially with a lack of risk taking entrepreneurs.
I was taught that 2 years is a good model, 5 years is good accounting, and 10 years is good timing.
This 'article' makes it sound like captaining a business is like some Dungeon and Dragon character creations. OK, I choose a business class, coding. OK, roll d20 and...ah, tough roll but I'll borrow money and roll again.
And at any rate, go read your post through, even their macro stats put only 20% failures due to outcompeted.
Because Darwin. Galapagos tortoise had a pretty good thing going until one fine day.
#8
The key datum, swksvolFF, is The takeaway here is that you can pretty much bet on a 80%, 70%, 50%, and 30% survival rate across one, two, five, and 10 years in business‐no matter the year.
Can your arguments explain this empirical observation? If they can't, they're irrelevant.
Look up "scientific method".
#10
I think the % Failure is skewed by restaurants which are notorious for that, with the slim profit margins, high costs
Restauranting B. Hard, and a lot of people get into it not realizing food service is different than cooking up a meal. My limited experience, after poor location and/or inappropriate menu is the expenses. Literal bean counting. First underestimating/forgeting expenses. Take the cheeseburger. They could have the meat, bun, seasonings, prep-cook time all figured..but forget to tally the sliced onion/tomato. That may only be $0.10 but over time that could be the property tax payment. On the flip side just pick a sale price out of a hat, which is fine if the $10 burger is worth $10 but there is still no control, no feedback on profit margin there. Cost of ice, trivial at a glance but may go through 15 pounds on a night.
Building a reputation is another catch. One employee has a bad night and everyone knows about it, especially nowadays when people are live-blogging their dining.
Then they have to guess tastes and trends. Say Mother's Day is coming up, and fried cod seems to be in favor - is that something they order extra of? is it usable if we order too much, don't want Mom to be told we are sold out of what she ordered on Mother's Day. Fried Avacado - trend or fad?
The trick in business is to learn from mistakes made, and try not make a mistake which sinks the business. Restaurant's mistake are not forgiving. They have a tough enough time getting a potential customer to break up their routine and give them a try, but a lost customer is forever. I bet everyone here can think of a time a restaurant did them wrong and never went back.
Fluctuating commodity prices. Best way to measure that is by spreadsheet or other program to manage Cost of Goods Sold. Lot of people don't like to do that. They hire a consultant, they figure COGS, and that's that. Year later, costs are up but sale price isn't changed.
License Fees and Changing Regulations. Miss a new reg or license expiration and they are shut down.
That all happens before the cooler goes out with $5000 worth of food, or vermin find their way in.
I have nothing but respect for restaurant operators, especially the ones who make it look easy.
#11
The big profit margins are in serving liquor which is why booze-to-go is a big story for restaurants. Unfortunately, it won't be the one drink turns into two or three like it does in the restaurant. Also lost are the spontaneous purchases like dessert and appetizers.
The Big Boys, I would be surprised if they open their lobbies up ever again, and I expect they convert that space into a drive through self service type deal where they pull up, waive their phone or whatever by a sensor, and with a whurr a door open bank-window style and the meal they ordered off the internet, or a card receipt from the walk up window, is right there.
No more having to pay people to sweep, take out trash, restock condiments and drinks, maintain the bathroom, run the register, huge savings.
No more lobby brawls, or up fronts with rude customers. Robberies would be more difficult.
The loss would be customers without vehicles on bad weather days. You know they have their COGS down to the sesame seed and a lean supply chain. Those companies have the 'meh, food' market totally wrapped up.
#12
Had Phil's BBQ (A San Diego fav) in Santee today for son's BDay lunch - Takeout ordered by phone. Seamless operation, consistent daily traffic according to guy at register
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/26/2020 19:02 Comments ||
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#13
All the stats and opinions in the post are suspect to begin with, as it is a lending company making the case for borrowing money. Is there truth there, yes, but I'm not going to bet the business on it.
Organizations, including businesses, operate until the point that expenses overwhelm income and the entity becomes insolvent, usually marked by not making income. Competition can lead to reduced income especially in saturated markets, it can contribute to expenses like advertising and payroll.
There are organizations which outlaw any competition and that is government, and governments go broke all the time.
Example: gun shops in New Jersey. Absolutely no competition but expenses still exist. Ammo wholesalers are wiped of inventory, so with the increase in demand and decrease in supply the cost of restocking shelves increases dramatically where, say the previous sale price is now less than the purchase price. So the store decides to re-stock at the increased price and that is a business risk decision, any retailer who went through The Great .22 Long Rifle Crises will tell you this. Stores were stuck with boxes of .22 were selling at half of what the purchase was, hitting them again. Again, business decision, but if I have no stock, I make no sale, out of business. Then there are utilities which must be paid, loans re-paid, taxes paid, insurance, depreciation, salaries are legally obligated payments to employee no matter what, all those are expenses even before unlocking the door to compete with other businesses.
I can start a business, right now, dipping cow pies into acrylic and selling them. As far as I know, absolutely nobody else is doing this. I get a loan to secure a processing building, I pay someone to either harvest cow patties or dip can't do it alone, cow patties have value and I have no cows (if I did that is a different expense) so I pay to cow owner, advertising, shipping costs, business license fee, property tax and/or lease fees.
Is there any demand for this product? Hell no, so price is set low at say $5. $1 COGS, $1 packaging, $1 waqes leaves me with a net of $2/sale. Say I'm already $100,000 in the hole, I have to sell 50,000 before the next round of expenses just to break even. No competition, but failed business model because poor business plan.
With good argument, this product does fit under novelty souvenir industry, but if you look at something similar like nationalized health care because they can charge whatever (taxes) and let expenses get away because the well never goes dry, perhaps we can see why one day the Galapagos tortoise was the apex terran of the island for thousands of years and the next they are overwhelmed by an unexpected expense of predators, the Wuhan Flu, the time to evolve is too short for success.
Same with the business owners in the front of The Great Chinese Takeout - one day you have the greatest theatre in New York, the next, you are against the law.
We need a sound understand of How Things Work in Business, and many people are going to find that the scene in Back To School where Dangerfield lectures the professor is accurate.
[Washington Examiner] What do you get when you cross a mediocre television host with a mediocre presidential candidate?
You get Nicolle Wallace's MSNBC interview this week of former Vice President Joe Biden.
Between Wallace’s many shortcomings as a TV host, a time delay, some apparent technical difficulties, and Biden’s penchant for rambling aimlessly on incoherent tangents, the entire 20-minute-plus exchange is an unmitigated disaster.
I could describe the moment when Wallace stares blankly at the camera, an ear-to-ear smile spread across her face, as Biden apologizes awkwardly for comparing President Trump to a yo-yo. I could also describe the moment when Wallace repeats Chinese Communist Party propaganda, parroting the allegation that it is racist to refer to the COVID-19 virus by its country of origin, as Biden dumbly nods along.
I could also describe the moment when Biden apologizes after asking why Trump cannot just "act like a president."
But this is one of those cases where you really have to see it for yourself:
[The Hill] Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) has apologized for a since-deleted tweet that was sent from his official account earlier this week that called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "retarded," blaming his phone’s auto-correct for the mishap.
Cramer is referring to a tweet that was sent out from his verified account on Tuesday night that read: "She’s retarded." The reply came in response to a tweet posted by the Daily Caller that shows footage of remarks Pelosi made about coronavirus stimulus legislation that lawmakers were working to get passed earlier this week.
According to the Grand Forks Herald, which captured a screenshot of Cramer’s post, the tweet had been removed from the senator’s account roughly 10 minutes after it was first posted.
The North Dakotan told the Forum News Service, under which the Herald operates, that he had initially intended to write, "She’s ridiculous." But he said his phone auto-corrected the text instead.
#3
My wife used to say that catnip made the household felines "tardalated." A classic example of a non word that almost anyone would understand the first time they heard it. There has to be a technical term for that, but I've never encountered it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/26/2020 4:53 Comments ||
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#4
Apparently autocorrect has developed sentience.
#5
There has to be a technical term for that, but I've never encountered it.
There is: malapropism, from the character Mrs Malaprop in the 18th c. comedy, The Rivals by Richard Brinsley-Sheridan.
Mrs Malaprop scolds her wayward niece, Lydia Languish, telling her "Get thee to a notary!" and suchlike. Funnier 250 years ago but you can imagine lots of contemporary equivalents... Mrs Malaprop was not the best but the first, so playwright Brinsley-Sheridan gets the glory
#7
#5, not to be pedantic but I have to disagree. English is my degree area and I'm quite familiar with malapropisms. The point of a malapropism is the incorrect usage of a legitimate word to humorous effect. Here I'm talking about a non word or coined phrase not seen in literature that nonetheless is immediately understandable in its meaning to someone who has never heard it before. I'm aware of other examples but I've neiheard a term applied to the type.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/26/2020 15:32 Comments ||
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#8
Not heard. Though "nei heard" sounds like how a Scotsman might put it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/26/2020 15:34 Comments ||
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[Pensford] I’m about to upset a lot of people this week and I apologize in advance. I actually deleted a lot of this from last week’s newsletter after I got eviscerated by friends and family. Eviscerated. Shamed. I can’t recall another time in the 11 years of writing this newsletter that I self-edited so heavily. These are people I love, respect, and trust more than anyone else. They made clear I was on the wrong side and needed to keep my ignorant opinions to myself. So I quarantined my opinion. Which lasted all of one week.
With the market plunge over the last week, I wonder if the larger societal quarantine will last any longer than my opinion quarantine?
Coronavirus is exceptionally dangerous and highly contagious. We were ill-equipped to handle a pandemic. I personally was ignorant to the risks and to our own inability to counteract them. None of what I am about to say is rooted in a belief that this virus isn’t terribly serious. With those caveats out of the way....
Continued on Page 49
Not me. I'm used to people who know, considerably, less than nothing mouthing off. We flatten the curve to prevent overburdening the medical system. Should be clear to anybody with an IQ above room temperature.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
03/26/2020 12:37 Comments ||
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#3
Every day more test kits are available, more masks (both N95 and donated reusable), more more-or-less sturdy makeshift ventilators (plus proper traditional machines with all the bells and whistles), more doses of hydroxychloroquinine and zithromax, more acceptance of the benefits of high doses of vitamins C and D for the stricken, more hospital beds... and even more retired medical professionals stepping forward to help their unretired brothers and sisters.
All of which has raised the line that the scary bell curve graph has to cross to reach total system overload and collapse. It will be nice to have a vaccine(s) when it arrives in a year or two, but the key is to have treatments so that patients need not pile up in the hospitals while slowly dying — or at home, if they are the triaged elderly. If we can reduce this to the problem level of something like strep throat instead of the current situation like polio needing hospitals full of patients in iron lungs, we need no longer keel even the elderly and immune-compromised locked away from any possibility of contamination.
#5
Flattening the curve does not change the area under the curve -- the total number of cases. We're all still going to get it. If we can treat it, then there is no longer a compelling reason to flatten the curve, and we can all get back to work.
#7
I'm about ready to 'flatten' the teevee. That's all that's on, and has been on for three weeks now. I'm sick of it.
Does anyone think that we could let these loathsome, shithouse bat eating communist bastards invade the country for 60 years, take our industry, overrun our educational system and scientific community, and not expect some repercussions?
If this is the limit of our understanding of culture, genetics, and human migratory trends, perhaps we deserve our globalist fate.
We have only ourselves and the Deep State elite in Washington to blame.
#8
Be confident, Besoeker. Take a longer view.
The tide of history is flowing in our direction.
The madness of 35+ years of Sinophiliac globalism has exhausted itself. It's spent.
Over. Done.
There's no going back to that deluded "global citizen" nonsense.
We have entered a new era, with new challenges, but certainly not those monsters of our elites' own making.
Now we need to look inward and repair our culture, our communities, our families and ourselves.
Lincoln's admonition needs to be tweaked; "We have it within our power to remake OURSELVES"-- not "the world." That world is nasty and toxic and fatal to us.
Turn inward. Rebuild. Reinforce.
F--- China and f--- idiotic, toxic globalism. It is literally killing us.
#9
I'm going to open another front along the lines of Besoeker:
There is much discussion about the medical ethical policy of shuttering for a few more weeks, I agree with that so long as people admit the economic ramifications of burning the village to save the village. (Hedley Lamar - I hate that cliché!)
Consider the social ramifications of extended shutter. How many millions urban people are going to sit on their butts, starving and out of money, before the kettle boils over? How many homeless can one cram into a stadium before what percentage needs to get their drug fix and try to force the door. How long before that incident throws a match in the hay and starts a barn fire?
We've seen it sooner, for less, for political gain. How long before Sharpton calls the quarantine of Brooklyn racist? Or the first report of food delivery dude infected had 1000 customers the last 7 days? Before the social animal Human gets the stir crazy?
Gonna do a Dark Knight Rises?, cuz' this is how you get a Bane. Or even The Joker's Boat Gambit.
h/t Instapundit
[Federalist] - Crises have a way of revealing critical, unspoken truths. If we can recognize these truths, we can emerge from such crises significantly stronger. While America’s first priority in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus crisis must be neutralizing immediate threats to the health and safety of our people, the disruption of our lives also provides an opportunity to engage in national reflection.
If we do so, amid the pandemic hysteria, several critical signals emerge. Acknowledging those signals today and internalizing them tomorrow can help us prevent, or be better positioned to handle, such Black Swan shocks to our system in the years ahead.
It's Kurt at TownHall, and he's back in full form
We’re probably at the end of the beginning of the great Chinese coronavirus insanity, and in not-too-long, we’ll be back to work, despite the people screaming that Trump wants to kill all the old people to please Wall Street fatcats because of course he does. We’ll also soon be assessing blame.
There’s lots of blame because there are a lot of stupid people and institutions who should be blamed. There are also heroes. I wrote about them the other day. But most of the people you recognize from the idiot box were zeros.
The list of zeros must begin with the media, as if that’s a shock. If you were expecting anything but garbage from our media, you have not been paying attention for, oh, the last half-century. Like its establishment masters, the press was freaking out because the Democrat candidates were a collection of mutants and nothing they threw at Donald Trump could stop him, not emoluments, not taxes, not chicks, not Russia, not Ukraine, not Upper Volta, nothing. And then...the Chinese flu. Yeah, that was it! Yeah, that would totally get Trump! Yeah, instead of dealing with the bogus impeachment, Trump should have been rebooting Contagion, though when he cut Bat-Soupland off from direct air travel the smart set called him "racist."
...Someday, an expert is going to write the definitive book on the modern American media. That expert will be a proctologist.
...Nancy Pelosi is another huge zero. Boy, talk about stepping on your Ted Lieu. Her idea about tanking the relief bill and trying to force her liberal Kwanzaa shopping list of commie fetishes down America’s throat was a strategic blunder of incredible proportions. Nancy forgot that it’s not 1970, when she was 62 years old, anymore. Her media pals will try to cover for her but the gatekeepers got no gate no more to keep. The truth came out and she wilted under the heat. The Dems look like idiots.
China is a huge zero. Those of us who aren’t globalist hacks were already over it, but now it’s pretty clear even to the dummies who it was not already clear to that you can’t trust commies. They lie, they cheat, and for some reason, they eat weird stuff. We’re going to consciously uncouple ourselves from reliance on China, and hopefully take a good look at its citizens’ infiltration of our own institutions in terms of outright espionage and buying influence. Many of our alleged best n’ brightest have shifted into outright support of the ChiCom line. The Atlantic has sucked up to the Chinese so hard that if you read one of its Xi-fluffing features, a half-hour later you’re ready to read it again.
Trump is a hero, of course. He’s been calm and cool and out there every day so effectively that the lib media was demanding his press conferences not be shown live ‐ hypocrisy, thy name is MSNBCNN. No one who is not insane or stupid or a social distancing lifestyle practitioner who scribbles for the Bulwank, to the extent that sad Venn diagram is not a single circle, blames Trump because the Chinese insist on munching on pangolins.
...And Biden is not just a zero but a negative number. He’s like a -4. This is a disaster for the Dems. They have him locked away in Delaware occasionally doing weird vids that seem to channel the bizarre conspiracy radio shows you get at the far left of the dial while driving through Nebraska at midnight.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[BBC] Voice technologies using AI are being used to help combat loneliness in countries including Sweden and the UK. Should they be used more widely as coronavirus spreads?
[NYP] The US will see a turning point in the battle to contain coronavirus sooner than expected, according to the Nobel laureate who correctly predicted when China would get through the worst of its crisis.
[Insider] While you may think that antiseptic wipes or sprays are necessary to kill germs, there's actually a metal that kills germs on contact ‐ no cleaning supplies necessary.
