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Home » Open thread 5/10/22

Open thread 5/10/22

The New Neo Posted on by

Apropos of yesterday’s Kentucky Derby thread, I bring you the mysterious belly-flop of Devon Loch, circa 1956:

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Open thread 5/10/22 — 38 Comments

  2. Election today in NE.

    I’m calling my shot. Jim Pillen wins by a nose. Trump-backed guy loses. He blew $11.3m of his own money trying to buy the seat. Kellyanne Conway is the big winner.

  3. Devon Lock could not know (for after all he was but a horse) his flopping stunt would prefigure by 60 yrs the conduct of American foreign policy in the era of Obama-Biden, nor that in this light he was not only the race winner, but also to be counted amongst the sainted “on the right side of HISTORY”!

    Among themselves, America’s allies wonder how such a crackpot idea ever became the guiding concept of American foreign policy. Senior leaders in both Israel and the Gulf have told me personally that they find the Biden team’s policies incomprehensible and its explanations of those policies fundamentally incoherent, if not dishonest. In quiet voices in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders are now talking about when, not if, they will have to take major military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

    None of this is likely to change minds in the White House. The progressive foreign policy paradigm is a closed intellectual system, which can never be falsified. It is also a domestic political initiative, which readily attributes any of its failures to the behavior of its adversaries. Is Iran more aggressive now than ever before? Perhaps, but not because Obama’s nuclear deal was ill-conceived. Iran is aggressive, because President Trump abandoned the JCPOA and thus rejected Obama’s path to peace. He provoked the Iranians, so now we are all paying the price.

    Wonders never end, mysteries never cease.

    A grand national disaster indeed.

  5. COVID babble, per Worldometers and Our World in Data.

    Global Benchmarks, seven-day moving averages assessed over the period running from 2 April 2020 to 23 March 2022. Mean daily deaths = 8,432. Nadir of daily deaths = 4,885.

    As of 9 May 2022, seven-day moving average of deaths = 1,745, 79% below the benchmark mean and 64% below the benchmark nadir.

    For the USA, Benchmarks: seven-day moving averages assessed over the period running from 2 April 2020 to 23 March 2022. Mean daily deaths = 1,381. Nadir of daily deaths = 245 (on 8 July 2021).

    As of 9 May 2022, seven-day moving average of deaths = 249, 82% below the benchmark mean and 2% above the benchmark nadir.

    ===

    Among the world’s affluent and high-middle-income countries, a number have had post-Omicron waves. In all but four cases, the countries so suffering have turned the corner on cases and deaths. Canada and Australia have turned the corner on case counts and appear to have hit the plateau on death counts. The United States and Panama have had escalating case counts for five weeks and four weeks respectively, with no observed increase in daily death counts.

    In the United States, the increase in case counts from their nadir (around 2 April) to the present has been 2.33x; the increase in the ICU census of COVID patients has increased 1.2x from its nadir on 18 April.

  6. “He provoked the Iranians, so now we are all paying the price.”

    Should be, “He provoked the Iranians, so now we must enable their nuclear aspirations even harder and faster.”

    Also would take issue with the “flop” symbolism:
    What “Biden” has been planning, and implementing—since 2009—is the “tactical” destruction of “the BIG SATAN” and “the LITTLE SATAN” in one fell swoop (while making it look as though “he”‘s trying his utmost to protect, and assist, them both.

    (“He” IS a clever Devil….)

    Which is not too difficult, actually, when the Best and the Brightest, the Most Caring and Compassionate, the Most Sophisticated and Intelligent, are willing accessories to this policy of “Biden”-sponsored sabotage…together with “his” uber-devious use of the Devil’s Wand, otherwise known as the E.O.

    (Funny how these things seem to get “lost” in the fog of Liberal delusion.)

    If the Liberals do happen to wake up, one hopes they don’t do so until it’s far too late….

    OTOH, the Almighty has been known to work in “mysterious ways”…(well, mysterious for us humans, I guess…)

  7. Having the Federal agencies suborned to your cause, especially the DOJ and the security apparatus (NIA/CIA)—and perhaps even the military—also make things a lot easier for the those whose goal is to utterly destroy…while having to conceal and cover up their treachery…while using all the weapons of government against those who try to stop them.

    (Did I say “cover up”?….)
    “DOJ notes show FBI panic after Trump tweet accusing Obama of spying on campaign;
    “FBI leadership was seemingly alarmed after Trump tweeted that he knew Obama was wire tapping Trump Tower.”
    https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/doj-notes-show-fbis-panic-after-trump-tweet-accusing-obama-wire-tapping

  8. Here’s a lovely obit of Dick Frances that details both his career as a writer and the loss that made him famous.
    https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2010/feb/14/dick-francis-obituary
    Frances thought Devon Loch was startled by the cheers but there were other theories.
    From the article: “Some said the horse had attempted to jump an imaginary fence; another theory, put up years later by Bill Braddon, Cazalet’s head lad, was that the girth was too tight and the horse suddenly let loose an enormous fart.”

  9. Art Deco,

    I’m still tracking covid data. To give a bit different perspective on your report, I would first note many states have now gone to one or two week reporting. So, I would say total US data is somewhat unreliable unless WoM somehow is getting backdoor data from these states.

    Nonetheless, “cases” are going up. I put in the quotes as many are being tested while being asymptomatic by their employers etc. So they show a positive test and are then counted. Are they really sick?? Of course not. Maybe infected with BA.2? Sure, but who cares? No one, including themselves, would even know without a forced test.

    Yes, “cases” up by about 45% over the last 60 days. You mention deaths which is also quite true about the low levels. Another perspective is that I calculate the percentage of serious cases with respect to active cases. It now stands at 0.10%, and can be fit with a linear function over the last 60 days with an R^2 of 0.98. It is trending down at a rate of 0.01% every 10 days. So, it that continues, in about a week and half it will be 0.09%. The actual number is around 1700 total in the US. There’s about 2000 heart attacks per day in the US.

  11. So, I would say total US data is somewhat unreliable unless WoM somehow is getting backdoor data from these states.

    IIRC, in Sweden, reports for a given day are not fully compiled for 11 days, so you can just look back.

    In the Worldometers data for the U.S., you can remark retrospective additions to the totals of a given day as they tabulate events of the week-end & c.

  12. OH great, now Lightfoot is calling for taking up arms against SCOTUS. Of course she means is “rhetorically”, but just wait until some left nutjob takes her literally.

  13. Better Lightfoot should Take up Arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them….

  15. Senator Josh Hawley has introduced legislation that would strip Disney’s extended copyright protection. It would cap copyright duration down to 56 years and be applied retroactively. I imagine it currently has zero chance of passing, but after November who knows? The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act made copyright duration is absurdly long: “life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever end is earlier”.

  16. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act made copyright duration is absurdly long: “life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever end is earlier”.

    IIRC, Irving Berlin’s work began passing into the public domain around about 1985; as he lived to see it, he found that frustrating.

  18. Physicsguy, Art Deco,

    I imagine it’s a math problem. A formula can actually be written, variables populated with real world data and the answer found; but now that we’ve seen how COVID has played out, do either of you have a sense of whether there was anything we mortals could have done for it to do less damage?

    It is my sense that it wound up behaving like a typical novel virus that is harmful to humans. Subsequent mutations were more contagious and less deadly. Although it is tragic that some people do die from the milder mutations, 2 and 1/2 years after it began to run rampant we appear to be in a “safe” phase.

    With what we now know was the best approach to isolate those at great risk (elderly, obese, diabetic, immunocompromised, asthmatic…) and encourage those at lesser risk to mix, mingle, contract the darned thing and recover?

    Could we have shortened the time it took to get to the less harmful mutation(s) by accelerating the spread among the least vulnerable?

  19. Rufus, being a physicist, I look at the numbers. Not being a biologist or an epidemiologist, I hesitate to offer an opinion on what could have been done better other than listening to all sides. In retrospect, to me, the Barrington declaration was the way to go, and now we have firm data from especially Sweden and Florida, that what those people were saying was correct. And now, with what I’m reading, that the vaxes actually promoted faster variants, the whole affair will probably go down as what NOT to do.

    Lots of blame that I can see. Trump shouldn’t have listened and put so much faith in the CDC, Fauci, and Birx. There were other voices, but he didn’t listen. The Ds weaponized the whole situation early and I think are totally responsible for the whole mess the country still finds itself. Big Pharma rushed a vax they knew was not effective and with serious side effects to cash in. SNAFU and CF all rolled into one. And add to that, we now have an administration during which we should be recovering, but they are determine to just add more to the misery and bringing it all down. I lived through the Carter years and early 80s, but these last 3 years are the most miserable I can ever remember, and the sad part is that there’s no end in sight.

  21. My suspicion is that if state governments had offered a mix of command-and-control regulations, subsidies, and exhortations which encouraged people over 50 to stay out of bars, restaurants, and theatres and then later amended that to people over 60 and people over 45 with weight problems, we’d have avoided a great deal of economic damage. Ditto subsidies and exhortations to employers to have their at-risk employees telecommute if possible and to go on furlough in return for special unemployment benefits if possible.

    Aside from funds for rapid medical research, all special expenditures by public authorities should have gone to temporary unemployment benefits and perhaps a special benefit for companies to maintain medical insurance for furloughed employees. We knew as soon as the “Diamond Princess” data arrived that this was not a threat to people under 45 and we knew by the summer of 2020 that the mode of transmission was indoor air. At this juncture, it also seems regrettable that so much effort went into vaccine research and so little into research into treatments.

  23. Art Deco, physicsguy,

    Thanks!

    I hadn’t thought of it before reading physicsguy’s comment, but it’s reminiscent of FDR. A Democrat administration coming in and exacerbating what it claims its attempting to fix. Let’s hope this time we find a better way to dig out than a world war!

  24. }}} It would cap copyright duration down to 56 years and be applied retroactively. I imagine it currently has zero chance of passing, but after November who knows? The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act made copyright duration is absurdly long: “life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever end is earlier”.

    I would say it has zero chance, too, but it would be far far more accurately done with that. It’s really absurd — the system/things that are hardest to make money off of — patentable processes and mechanisms — have two very short terms, one whole term of which is often required to get something even into production, much less into profitability. Copyright, meanwhile, Runs about 120y after the release of the subject material, which can be instantly making income from that moment onward.

    Not suggesting that patents need more coverage, just noting the absurd disparity in the two kinds of IP.

    }}} IIRC, Irving Berlin’s work began passing into the public domain around about 1985; as he lived to see it, he found that frustrating.

    Imagine my lack of concern. Society does not owe you anything whatsoever for your creations. Historically, it can, and does, take them and use them as it sees fit. The entire notion of IP protection is a very very recent innovation, with the idea of general protection for IP to provide reward for the creator being first expressed in — yes, the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8):

    [the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

    The first such laws were similar to the patent laws: they granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of 14 years and to renew for another fourteen.

    The first revision, 1831, the term of protection of copyrighted works was extended to 28 years with the possibility of a 14-year extension

    The next direct revision of US law was in 1909, when a bill broadened the scope of categories protected to include all works of authorship, and extended the term of protection to 28 years with a possible renewal of 28.

    1976 is when it really got out of hand, as they modified US law to closely resemble utterly ridiculous European laws called the “Berne Conventions” from 1886. The 1976 act preempted all previous copyright law and extended the term of protection to life of the author plus 50 years (works for hire were protected for 75 years).

    More and more, they are acting less and less to “promote the sciences and the arts” — which continually build on each other, and need the free flow of ideas — and more and more to guarantee a special monopoly on an idea — which promotes wealth for the creator (or a corporate financier {cough!} [cough!} Disney [cough!} but little else.

    I think the original 28y is actually about right for copyright. If you haven’t made yourself wealth from it in that time, let someone else have at it, and see what they can do.

  25. BTW, strongly Strongly recommend reading this.

    It’s 28 years old, and still exceptionally on-point.

    The Economy of Ideas
    A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age. (Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong.)
    by JOHN PERRY BARLOW
    https://www.wired.com/1994/03/economy-ideas/

    And it should be noted — Barlow is not just some jerk talking through his hat. The band he was in, The Grateful Dead, were for many years one of the top earners in music. He is rich as a direct result of acting on his observations.

    “I have worked with musician Peter Gabriel on several projects. At a workshop
    we were holding for AT&T he was asked, ‘How do you deal with piracy of your
    albums?’ Gabriel said, ‘Oh, I treat it as free advertising. I follow it with
    a rock concert. When they steal my albums in Indonesia, I go there and
    perform.’ Now that stands the whole relationship on its head.”
    – Peter Schwartz –

    “GI [General Instrument, makers of many Satellite TV coding systems] has said
    from day one that people pirate the signal because they don’t want to pay for
    it. But everyone who uses a pirate modem in a VC II board is now paying for it!
    the fact is, people ARE willing to pay, but only so much. In computer software,
    when games cost $100 to $150, there was a big piracy problem. It went away
    because the software is now reasonably priced, and dealers can make money
    selling it. If you want to eliminate video piracy, all you have to do is bring
    down the prices and let dealer sell the programming.”
    – Fred Martin, Pirate Satellite TV Dealer –

    I would assert that services like Pandora, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited all do a spectacular job of reducing piracy, far more than any efforts to enforce copyright do. Modern copyright does more to harm the flow of information — the usage of the IDEAS to their full social capability — than anything else.

  26. This equine mishap calls to mind surely the most tragic in all of racing, that of the filly Ruffian in 1974. Not easy to see, especially knowing its aftermath. She never lost, never even had to come from behind, had no real competitors, set record after record. Some claim she may have been the greatest racehorse, filly or colt, ever to run; she was deemed “maybe even better than Secretariat” by no less than Big Red’s trainer himself, after he saw her win. Today she lies buried by the flagpole on the infield at Belmont Park, her head facing the finish line — a unique honor for a peerless athlete.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_OGZc3FaoU

  28. Re: John Perry Barlow

    ObloodyHell:

    I wouldn’t go so far as to say Barlow was a member of the Grateful Dead. He was Inner Circle and he wrote lyrics for rhythm guitarist, Bob Weir.

    However, I remember Barlow mostly as a libertarian hippie who jumped on concerns for digital freedom. He was one of the founders of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation which has done good work. There was a freedom wing to the hippie movement, not just about drugs, and Barlow is a prime example.

    Likewise the Dead themselves. As I’ve mentioned, Ann Coulter was a Deadhead and she went to 60+ Dead shows. She was even invited backstage to hang with the Dead and it wasn’t a problem. She saw Freedom as their common ground.

    As do I.

  29. Le Mot Juste: “She never lost, never even had to come from behind, had no real competitors, set record after record. Some claim she may have been the greatest racehorse, filly or colt, ever to run”
    I just watched all her races. Wow.
    I also watched an interview with Bill Nack. He said a pigeon flew straight at her, she startled and misstepped. You can see the pigeons in the footage. Whatever the reason – what a tragedy.

  30. This is from an article by Bill Nack:
    “Ruffian’s pedigree did not guarantee her demise, but it certainly telegraphed her vulnerabilities to breaking down under the most extreme physical pressures that the sport can offer. Ruffian’s soft-boned sire, Reviewer, had broken a leg three times while in training as a racehorse, and had to be destroyed after breaking down a fourth time in a paddock accident while serving at stud. And, as Parker has pointed out more than once, Ruffian’s dam, Shenanigans, was a daughter of Native Dancer. So she had the same genetic predisposition for unsoundness hanging from the top and bottom branches of her family tree.
    “Ruffian was an accident waiting to happen,” Parker lamented.”

    Here’s the link: https://www.espn.com/sports/horse/triplecrown08/columns/story?columnist=nack_bill&id=3399004

  31. Hey, Cornhead, looks like Pillen +3.5%, more than a nose. Who was the Trump-endorsed candidate?

  32. but it’s reminiscent of FDR. A Democrat administration coming in and exacerbating what it claims its attempting to fix.

    That’s not what happened in 1933.

  34. A candidate they roy moored, the winner will sell out the remaining farmland to to china

  35. physicsguy is usually great, but have to disagree with this:
    ” Big Pharma rushed a vax they knew was not effective and with serious side effects to cash in. ”
    The vaccine was effective at reducing death, and millions who got the vaccine, then the disease, didn’t die.

    Going from serious side effects at a 1 in a million, up to 1 in a thousand, is actually a 1000% increase in badness – but 1 in a thousand is still very low risk.
    I sort of stopped following the data, and would like to see data about matched cohorts (age, obesity, lifestyle) in their COVID deaths, especially over 70 (or set at 70), middle age (or set at 45), and minors (or set at 12).

    I’m pretty sure far fewer Covid deaths for the old and fewer Covid deaths for the middle; not sure about minors. The excess deaths rates are also important, but the selection bias problems are pretty serious.

    Please consider posting the most relevant link or two for data you most trust.

  38. Joke from the Scott Adams podcast:
    Breaking – Rich Strike refuses a meeting with Joe Biden. Asked why – he replied, “If I had wanted to see a horse’s ass, I would have come in second.”

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