Re: COVID-19 - Part 2
Wide range of discussion topics with some decent questions (others less so), so let's start here ...
have you considered why the number of forecasted death might be going down? If you ask Dr. Fauci he would probably tell you that our social distancing efforts are paying off.
I'm sure that's part of it, BassAle. But the range between the original predictions - a chasm between literally millions of US deaths forecasted, and now the latest (tens of thousands of US deaths) - should shock anyone with any degree of objective reason. These are numbers, not feelings or opinions.
Here's a sports-themed example - let's say I hold myself out as a pro football expert, and I predict at the start of the season, your NE Patriots are going to win 12+ games, and coast to the AFC East (again), even without Brady at QB. It's a unique situation with no real data to draw upon, right? Belichick without Brady and Scarnecchia (sp?)? Kinda like novel COVID-19? But you trust my expertise, and you bet the house on the Pats winning at least those 12 games.
So, we get a few games into the season, and it's clear the Patriots are no longer THE Patriots of recent vintage. They're going to struggle. Say they've gotten out of the gate at 3-3. Me, the pro football expert, comes on here and says "well, based on the data coming back now, it's looking like a 7-9 or 8-8 season, or maybe a 9-7 season if they improve". Does that make me an "expert"? Or does that mean I was just (educated) guessing up front, and now I'm revising my (more educated) guess? It doesn't matter to you, because you bet your house on my <s>expertise</s> educated guesswork, and now YOU are losing your shirt - not me. As a result, should I expect you to come back for my "wisdom" when making your get-even wagers on the NBA season? I doubt it.
The modelers in London, and the IHME folks in Seattle WA were the "experts" upon whose predictions we shut the country down. Let's just say that they were a little "off" - and pardon the excuses, but when you're that far off, it's not a close call. Throw in the extra death "padding" that Dr. Birx mentioned yesterday, and it's reflecting rather poorly on the modelers. More on that later …
… but a fair question, and one I hope I answered fairly. The quality takes a steep step down here ...
Did (HRC) ever tell anyone to leave the country because they disagreed with her, that they were nasty for asking a question, call them a dummy dope, refer to other countries as a ****hole, create childish nicknames for nearly every political opponent, call someone a spoiled brat, or a low class slob, a perv sleazebag, refer to the typical person of a country a rapist, claim to a be a negotiator like "you folks" when speaking to a Jewish coalition, reference "the blacks", or generally present herself as a racist d-bag that never cared for anyone else but herself and the 1%?
https://www.forbes.com/pictures/flji45elmm/donald-trumps-10-most-of/
https://www.politico.eu/article/15-most-offensive-things-trump-campaign-feminism-migration-racism/
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history
I don't even like Hillary but to compare the types of reactions each should elicit is beyond bizarre.
Actually, since you apparently weren't paying attention back in mid-2016, but Hils did basically call about a quarter of the country racists, sexists, etc. yada yada yada (see
deplorables). And one of her literally hundreds of post-election excuses was that "too many women were getting their voting orders ("mansplaining"?) from their husbands/fathers/significant male others", thus accusing even more folks of sexism and/or sheer stupidity in the most contemptuous way ("How DARE you not vote for me, The Chosen One, you unenlightened little girls?"). So that's "beyond bizarre"? Only your failure to see beyond your own cloistered viewpoint, I'm afraid. C'est la vie.
P.S. - with such a great handle ("Slap Shot"), I'd think you'd be a little less sensitive to President Trump's creative labeling, name-calling, or unfavorable descriptions of <s>third-world he11holes</s> lost paradises like Haiti, Guatemala and Honduras. Maybe you'll give some thought to re-naming your on-line persona as
Lady Byng or
Participation Medal? Or
Bambi?
We'll wrap up today's lunchtime briefing with this one, which brings us back to the modeling thingie ...
Yep, just like those scientists hired by Exxon in the '80s predicted precicely where we would be at today if we jammed our thumbs up our a** and ignored carbon emissions for 30 years. And lo! Now that we're removing our collective thumbs, the scientists were right!
But somehow, according to the modern GOP, science is now a fraud and completely inaccurate?
First of all, here's the thing. Before anyone on the Left gets to lecture on the "Science" thing - which I do understand substitutes for your secular religion (hey, to each their own) - you have to answer me this. When the same "Science" you worship makes it routinely possible for so-called "clumps of cells" to be born AND then live pretty much normal human lives after the midway mark of a human pregnancy, then how is it that so many (not all BTW)on the Left just shrug at the idea of well over a half-million of these future humans not getting to live their lives (like you and me), out of no fault of their own?
If you pass that test, then good for you, feel free to lecture away. Let's pick up the discussion here. "Science" and the modelers haven't even figured out a vaccine for COVID-19 yet. It's downright arrogant to think they can unlock the mysteries of how the planet operates. But since they get paid substantial sums for having "expert" opinions - just like my fictional pro football expert from the start of this post - they have to come up with something to justify their expertise. So the "global cooling" of the 1970's (yes, boys and girls - this WAS a "thing" believe it or not) morphed into the "global warming" of the 1990's, and now into a vague and less assailable "climate change" we're having now. A lot of the same folks who hatched the earlier junk science guesswork back in the day are still at it. And the dire predictions of "doomsday" (sounding familiar yet?) are always just far enough off that folks like me are supposed to forget about their earlier failed prognostications.
Or we can put it another way … our present-day scientists and modelers - most of whom I want to believe are well-intentioned, if not a tad naïve and idealistic - are working with high-quality data that stretches back (and I'll be generous here) a century, tops. Other data exists, but it's harder to incorporate into models, so that tends to get left on the cutting room floor. But the planet has been in existence for a few billion years, so the complete data set would have to at least - at LEAST - include a few million years, no? So, 100 years in comparison with (at least) hundreds of millions of years? There are roughly 90,000 seconds in a single day. That means our modelers are taking guesses on what just happened a second or two before midnight while ignoring the rest of the day. Well-intentioned? Sure? Some opportunists? Yup. Something to worry about? For me, no.
In conclusion, I'll let leftist icon George Carlin weigh in first, and then let Dennis Prager weigh in more recently from the right. Two more different folks you probably couldn't imagine. But I think you'll be surprised at how this all plays out (maybe Carlin knows my buddy Nostradamus?) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
https://www.dennisprager.com/maybe-nature-shouldnt-be-worshipped-after-all/