The transition seems well underway now. It is what it is.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
The geriatric presidency
If I were Kamala Harris I'd be boning up on foreign policy right now just on the off chance. It's like when your father dies and he knew about the plumbing but you don't. Natural causes is like a 50/50 right now. Rudy Giuliani is pretty much a national joke. It's like the old shrink tests - Giuliani/Running hair dye. Even Rush Limbaugh is getting impatient.
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Got no problem with Harris: CA Attorney General, Senator, where
ReplyDeleteshe sat through intel briefings on that committee. Consider experience wise, the ex prez...real estate and skip intel briefings. Not to worry, Trump will continue to stay in the news. Maybe continue to have rallies etc. Pence meanwhile will
have more time for church. It is what it is, or as Stallone would say ce sera sera. What's Sarah Huckabee Sanders up to
these days? Got a bro in law up in Alaska, asked him if they
still deliver vaccines by dogsled. Any thoughts on life after
pandemic?
I think Biden was really just a stopgap measure to stop Trump and people are just now realizing God the guy is old.
DeleteDoes Fauci have any thoughts of retiring soon?
Fauci? Both Fauci and Bernie look to have a ton more stamina than Joe. Honestly, I go to bed praying Biden makes it to be certified. He looks very shaky to me.
DeleteAnd that's from a guy who voted for him.
Fauci doesn't look bad for his age. On a good day Biden looks stiff. My friend thinks the plan is for Biden to step down for health reasons sometime during his first term and for Kamala Harris to take over.
DeleteThe computing technology race continues. The latest
ReplyDeletequantum cubit
approach uses trapped ions. Wonder how one traps an ion..leg
trap, ion bait? What if you get a wolverine instead? Used a
gas chromatography unit in the past that used radioactive nickel ion capture. Is a trapped ion like a captured ion?
Dunno..color me computer challenged..
You say cubit I say qubit.
DeleteWow, a double gottcha! Obviously I need an editor, being older than Biden. Too much bible reading, cubits. 300 of
Deletethem comprising Noah's Ark. 450 ft of wood. Where in the
Negev Desert did he scrounge up that kind of timber?
BB... maybe their raping of a forest turned it into desert???
DeleteDave are there any Vegas odds yet that Kamala Harris will take over the helm sometime in the next four years?
ReplyDeleteFauci looking for another surge. Lot of people blame him for
ReplyDeletethe surges. Wife forgot to wear her mask at the fabric store
today. She slinked home and said she felt dirty. Idaho's Lt.
Governor wants money for walk through sterilization booths. The
governor says they only kill malarial mosquitos..and can give you emphysema. Both Republicans but they don't speak to each
other and neither do their followers.
A creepy yardstick but if there's no refrigerated mobile morgue unit next to my local funeral home it ain't surging yet. No real hoarding lines yet outside the stores and plenty of TP on the shelves. Plenty of people are still dying though so what is considered a surge a whole lot of people dying?
DeleteUsually the law is just some sort of face covering. Not sure if your state is a mask state yet. A woman is an easy one. A kerchief or a scarf will do in a pinch.
DeleteOdds on Kamala? I'd bet it 2 to 1.
DeleteYou being a NY guy, you probably know that bet won't make you a lot of money.
I'm gonna put it at 3 to 1 for now.
DeleteThe subject of Fauci brings up an interesting philosophical issue and I know you're of the opinion I don't like the guy. For the longest time it has been conventional wisdom that optimism is better than pessimism. It's like a default position. Norman Vincent Peale and all that. Say to people you're not an optimist and people think there's something wrong with your personality. Had this happen at work once with an optimist. You're always supposed to be an optimist. It's just supposed to be better maybe mentally, spiritually whatever and it doesn't matter the situation either. Fauci turns that on its head like almost overturning a whole philosophical tradition and the media follows suit. This is not an attack. Information and data is still information and data but the whole debate about optimism vs. pessimism goes on......
ReplyDeleteThe old glass half full or half empty...at least the glass
Deletecontains 50% brandy.
Norman Vincent Peale, power of positive thinking, friend of Nixon and close to a young Donald Trump. To we sour puss lab types it has no meaning. But...placebos work
Deleteremarkably some times. Carrot and stick wise, he was a carrot guy..and we all appreciate that. Back in the Roman
legions, if they lost a battle, every tenth legionnaire was executed. Stick... Bad. My wife is an optimist, I'm a pessimist..we run about 50/50 on results..the Golden
Mean.
Fauci not an optimist safe to say. To me yes he has to be objective and provide accurate info but he seems to have that pessimistic overlay. Like when I hear a weather forecast calling for 3-6 inches most people instinctively feel it's gonna be six but I like to focus on the three. Am I being unscientific?
DeleteYes to the brandy.
DeleteWeather forecast: our little TV channel covers several
Deletehundred square miles of deep valleys and high mountains.
The weatherman invariably says, "winds will be 20,30,40,50
mph. The only given is when he says "just a dusting of snow here in the valley" a couple years ago the dusting
came to 19". He does have local photos of people and the fish they caught, though.
Yeah that really narrows it down like when they say partly sunny with a chance of rain. I could have said that.
DeleteSo guys... when is someone a pessimist and when is that person a realist?
ReplyDeleteAsking for a friend.
I consider myself a realist. I lean towards cynicism and pessimism though.
DeleteWeather forecasters work with different models. Similarly Dr. Fauci works with different models I just think he heavily leans towards those models with the most negative results so I think he's a kind of pessimist/realist in that order.
Is Schrodinger's cat an optimist, pessimist or realist?
DeleteAll three at the same time.
Delete"Schrodinger's cat"???
ReplyDeleteThat's getting to smart for me BB...
I'm a cynical guy still trying to understand the reality of my faith and live it out. Quantum mechanics is above my brain grade.
BB was talking about the cytokine storm in covid patients. Yeah yeah the cytokine storm. I didn't want to show my ignorance.
DeleteHey- Shrodinger wasn't all equations and no play. He lost his
ReplyDeleteprofessorship at Oxford before WWII for keeping two wives. Brits
are so fuddy-duddy. Our cat Mikey has a tubful of kitty litter
labeled 'Shrodinger's Box'. Mikey can apparently read.
Do theoretical physicists not like cats? Then I was reading Schrodinger's Cat led to the quantum suicide thought experiment which has been heavily debated. I'm also thinking theoretical physicists like to imbibe adult beverages. Meanwhile I'm no closer to understanding the universe.
DeleteGiuliani doesn't seem like the same guy anymore.
ReplyDeleteSeems to apply to a lot of people these days. Ever think you're on good terms with someone and they bring up a thirty year old grudge?
DeleteMy brother came over on Thanksgiving. He was talking about how Giuliani when he was a US Attorney took down the five big crime families in New York. Then he led the City during 9/11 now look at him. What the hell do you put on the epitaph?
I'm confused. Watching the BBC News and apparently these upcoming vaccines have to be kept at extremely low temperatures in freezers and this poses huge logistical challenges. So what does your doctor do inoculate you in a meat freezer at your local supermarket?
ReplyDeleteThe Pfizer mRNA vaccine has to be kept at more than 95 degrees below as the RNA strands begin to come apart. Since that is considerable colder than most commercial
Deletefreezers. Many microbiologists use liquid nitrogetn which
is even much colder, in Dewar flasks. Dry ice (solid CO2)
is sufficient at minus 104, but the vaccine has to be shipped and stored and many clinics and hospitals do not
have the necessary equipment. Gotta be cold enough to freeze the balls off a Christmas tree, I'm thinking.
Doesn't exactly sound like a smooth rollout.
DeleteThe vaccine is kept on dry ice at about 100 below. I haven't been able to find info, but suspect it must be warmed to room
ReplyDeletetemperature before injection. Otherwise it would cause 'freezer
burns' along the needle..the extreme low temperature causing
tissue damage. They have observed dry ice storms on Mars, which
would seemingly be a good place to store Pfizerstuff. Last night, Mrs. rearranged all the electrical cords to the 6 receptacle plug in: tree lights, railing lights, lamps, laptop
and BP tester, placing a cord with a button so we could just tap
it to turn on the tree and railing decorations. Nothing worked.
She got up still mad this morning and went over her electrical
cobweb. Found out she had plugged the receptacle bar into inself, creating a powerless loop. Senility.
How the hell are you so smart?
DeleteBit of controversy in this country. The Brits are getting the vaccine before we do.
ReplyDeleteAnd they say socialized medicine is slow.
ReplyDeleteA fairly significant number of people that I know, some co-workers who are not alt-righters or flat-earthers say they are not going to get the vaccine. Does Cuomo come by and have his two goons strap you down in a chair?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Biden is calling for 100 Days of Mask Wearing. Is this like Mardi Gras?
Ya, the whole thing is just weird. We got about the same
Deletenumber of deaths every day lately as there were on 911, but they ain't all on TV. It looks like Covid requires 70-75% to get to herd immunity. A whole lot of the herd
is much more concerned with the Nazi horrors of wearing
a little face mask or not having 200 people over for a wedding. The herd is going in two directions, Z-Man, a
guarantee we will be surging until the survivors are immune. I think you are an essential worker (at least for
quite awhile) and that group has high priority for a shot.
I'm old enough to get one and I will. Kind of reminds me
of how the herd reacted to the Black Plague, a lot of praying, singing and those weiros parading the dirt street
with whips, self flagellating, the nobles and rich merchants heading for their summer place way way out in
the country. Of course they didn't know squat about medicine. We do. Go figure.
Covid, Cuomo, Biden, Fauci: but what the heck would Rudy
DeleteG. do? Free hair dye for victims? I'm glad England is starting off. Give us a chance to sit back, watch and see
if it works, the side effects..any drooping of the famed
'stiff upper lip' etc. Meanwhile, like I note above, the
ridiculously tiny virus appears smarter than our highly
advanced technical society. Kind of embarrassing, no?
The people at work who don't want the shot all voted for Biden. Maybe they consider it a Trump vaccine.
DeleteA whole lot of people don't get flu shots either. Then there is a significant anti-vax group-think it causes autism and any number of other maladies. Like the old
Deletemasturbation causes blindness, eating spinach makes you strong and rhino horn makes you a studly phenom. Dunno.
Was pondering the whole virus-human war. Air: it kills
virus, but humans need it to live. The virus needs humans
to live. Kind of simple-seems reasonable to interdict
like masks. Odd thing: the Mrs. was sitting by the window talking. Sun shining behind her. Each word came out
with tiny droplets that glistened in the sun. Conclusion:
either wear a mask or don't talk with the sun behind you.
Hydroxychloroquine: works for malaria and sometimes arthritis. Considerable side effects. Tinnitus: Like the
whole medical community, I's still working on it. Maybe
caused by vaccines?
Talking to the head chef today. He likes to talk covid numbers so he did and I said how come we're not getting it? He said because we're wearing masks so I go you think people are getting it because they're not wearing masks and he goes yeah so I go but we're in New York and we have to wear a mask. He seems to think masks are foolproof which is a dangerous attitude to have. I believe they greatly reduce the risk but you can still get covid if you hang with the wrong crowd. We take our masks off in the break room at work to eat don't we?
DeleteMasks are not foolproof. If your scuba mask isn't tight or has a tiny hole, you will soon get a watery face. Read a few studies
ReplyDeleteon mask effectiveness which ranged from useless to highly effective..eg. inconclusive. The one that made the most sense was based on the Taiwanese and S. Korean total mask response and
cold-cocking their pandemics early on. The deal (the authors think) is that while masks vary in their efficiency, they if they don't block viral entry, they greatly reduce the dose.
I kind of think that may leave a big dose stuck out the outside surface-maybe a big problem. Hard to eat in a mask:
that's why where we go, they keep the tables about 15 ft. apart
and they don't seem to have much of a problem. IMO, the block
beer parties of hundreds, the funerals, weddings and other large
gatherings are real popular with floating covid molecules..easy
target, say compared to trying to fight their way past your super copper model. My Fauci corollary is: as long as there is
a significant percentage of people who don't wear masks or socially distant, wash hands etc, the pandemic will go on and
on. Maybe Guiliani contracted the type that settles in your
good judgment section of the noggin? Dunno, Z-Man, we been hassling with this topic since Moses was a kid, ya know?
BB... speaking of masks, what the heck is going on in Boise? Your state os running put of beds and now ppl are storming the health district meetings without masks demanding entry?
ReplyDeleteAren't they free to not attend if they insist on a mask?
It looked like a zoo watching the inmates go crazy as your state runs out of beds.
Sheesh...
The three of us don't have it. Maybe we do and just don't know it or maybe we had it and were asymptomatic. We hear the numbers but if you have "it" what exactly is it? BB I'm subscribing more and more to your viral load theory. IT, everyday we hear about it. Is it a little bit or a lot of it? You test positive so what do you have? So a medico/philosophical question - what is IT?
ReplyDeleteSince 'it' thrives in the lungs, multiplies and gets coughed or breathed out from there, it may be that the small dose (asymptomatic) victim may also be a non-carrier. Or not. An area we haven't discussed is the
Deletevarying immune response of individuals and what effect that may have on the difference between asymptomatic and
dying in a ventilator. The few people that I know in virus
academia and healthcare are totally livid at the idea that
a significant portion of the populace refuses to recognize that they are part of the problem, that their
'freedom' may well mean someone else's death. Has the
human race advanced any?
But that would make us into some type of metaphysical serial killers or mass murderers and that's not a normal philosophy to have in life. In fact it's very weird. Do we learn our covid scores after we die? BB killed a grandma in the hardware store because he touched a box of nails. This covid philosophy is hard for people to accept.
DeleteAlso are the people in virus academia and healthcare who are so livid willing to destroy the US economy to protect us from a bug? There is already documented evidence that the suicide rate has gone up because of the lockdowns. Do they care about those lives too?
DeleteThat is the dilemma isn't it? The healthcare nurses and doctors are working in rooms soaked in covid virus, 18
Deletehrs a day 6-7 days a week months on end. They pull the sheets up over dead faces hourly. I would hate to do that job. Compared to putting on a mask, it takes a huge effort to keep at it. (and no, they are not faking more cases to make more money as the demented one accused-which
makes them even more upset). As long as we worry about the
economy and not the 'bug', say open up everything like the good old days, you know dang well what would happen..
maybe go from 2000 dead to 10,000 dead a day. Who cares about those lives...not Wall Street. Stress causes suicide, no doubt about that..just look at the rates among
the ptsd kids coming back from combat. Unfortuanately we
are looking at collateral damage here..who gets the carrot, who gets the stick. Doctors think one way, business thinks the other. Extremely strict at the beginning like S. Korea- 545 since it started-9.8 million
in Seoul alone- looks pretty effective in hindsight.
We are way past that and we ponder, tough it out or
give up. BTW, we been hauling a lot of foodstuffs down to
the thankful local food bank..least we can do, ya know?
See Dr. Robert Quigley's interview with the BBC News over the suicide rates during lockdowns. He's on the healthcare side of things in this debate but at least he's honest.
DeleteI think there is some amount of self-righteousness among the healthcare academia I guess you could call them. They have jobs while many Americans don't. Also you may be a model of masking when you're out but you probably touch stuff when you're browsing.
As for the death rates being inflated because of co-morbidities that's a whole other discussion.
DeleteSaw some guy on the telly today, a 'grief expert'. Sounds like a downer of a job. He said every single person is
Deleteaffected in one way or another by the psychic numbing of
Covid and as you note driven to despair and suicide in some instances. His hobby must have been air travel, because he compared Covid morbidity to 19 747 jets crashing each day. As far as precautions he explained
it was like a jetliner at 30,000 ft. The stewardess
reminds the passengers that their rights come first and
anyone who wants can open the door.
Shrodinger's Jet? Our loony far right Lt. Governor has
been complaining about wasting government money to bail
out small businesses and workers. Tis interfering in the
private sector. Came out in the paper today that she had
accepted $317,000 from the nasty government last Summer to
bail out her Boise bar. My goodness, the circus.
I'm thinking we should have a separate category for Covid-related suicides. When you treat them in the abstract as so-called collateral damage it's easy to turn the page and go that's just the price of fighting covid. These were real people with real lives and the survivors are real. The governors who issued overly broad lockdowns it's on them. Tragic.
DeleteRE: " He's on the healthcare side of things in this debate but at least he's honest." Does you doctor know you think the medical community lies and the political community is a paragon of truth? If you don't trust doctors, nurses and teachers, they
ReplyDeleteare wasting a whole lot of time on education, time...and you. :)
When they start calling for a more targeted approach that won't destroy small businesses people would be more on board. Cuomo is crushing parts of the restaurant industry in New York State then he goes to bed at night. I've said this at the start of this pandemic I don't understand this all or nothing approach. The medical community seems to prefer an apocalyptic approach and I'm not on board that.
DeleteAll or nothing say compared to half-assed? I'd consider 'all' as accomplishing something, or 'nothing' as
Deleteaccomplishing something (say ending Covid or keeping business normal). These both have serious defaults. So
you may be onto something there Z-Man ..localized half-ass, both benefits for fighting disease and keeping places open along with some downside. I see some 101 year old woman survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, fought off cancer and had covid twice and is still grinning.
Brandy will do that. Heard Giuliani tested positive..the
first positive the poor guy has had in months. NYC restaurants..big deal there. I understand. Don't you think their reps and Cuomo could work something out?
How do you run a restaurant and avoid Covid..is that
possible? Your workplace seems to handle things quite
well.
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DeleteThis is what I'm saying. I'm seeing no middle ground. Cuomo and some of the other governors seem to have a monarch complex.
DeleteMiddle ground is tough. Example: "OK, men we will be landing on
ReplyDeleteOmaha beach in a half hour. In fairness, any who don't want to
won't have to".. kind of like being half pregnant. Poor Rudy is
in the hospital. Will he be accusing them of fake tests, fake treatment and leaving the ventilator unplugged? Tough virus-
odd times. Went out to eat last night. Four other customers.
Place used to hum and service was fast. We were there over an
hour before the meal came. The menus were soaked in liquid sanitizer. Odd times. Local newspaper is dropping Monday editions and laying off people. Biden breaks foot chasing dog,
Rudy gets Covid, eldercare homes breaking out again. Being an
old fart is downright precarious these days.
Saw on the news about 40% of the national deaths are from nursing homes. That was about a week ago though.
DeleteOk so no middle ground. Scorched earth policy. Economic apocalypse, businesses closing left and right, possible stock market crash and food lines miles long. Add to that a lot of people I've come across ain't gonna get the vaccine. The Mad Max approach.
If it's so omnipresent how come we don't have it yet?
ReplyDeleteA new debate has started. Is natural immunity to covid better than a vaccine?
Natural immunity vs vaccine-
DeleteInteresting question, typical of your usual perspicacity.
I heard of one case, a woman who had covid. She recovered
it was gone..and a few months later she caught it again.
Extremely rare aparrently. It is possible that the crux
of the situation is the length of immunity. Your cats,
and probably Shordinger's, get shots which are good for
3 years. Flu shots a are good for one season, smallpox shot good for life etc. Whether natural or vaccine, the
immune system is placed on alert for a particular antigen
(usually by its molecular shape and/or its reactivity)
Why the immune response lasts longer in some cases and shorter in others for various viral disease is another question. The current vaccines are mRNA types, which means
that a section of specific messenger RNA mimics the active
section of the covid molecule- unlike the killed virus in
flu shots, measles etc. An important feature of the mRNA
shot is that although you are immune, you are not in the least contagious; your natural immunity if you have had
Covid leaves you in a contagious state..eg a carrier.
Technicalities aside, I'd rather have the shot than have
the natural Covid infection. Old guys are sissies.
So basically don't be a half-ass be a hard-ass.
ReplyDeleteIf that was a Jeopardy question, I'd have to say, "What are politicians, Alex" They are all asses of some type and
Deletedegree, no?