winsor

It was said that George H. W. Bush had Dan Quayle as a life insurance policy, and it seems that the incumbent has his: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harris-needs-to-get-serious-biden-administration-competency-approval-rating-polling-11639093358 It concerns me that the only people who could do a particularly good job of the presidency have better things to do, and we are stuck with second-raters from which to choose. The campaign slogan of "We Suck Less" could be used by either party - but it would be patently untrue in either case. The ideal candidate would be a combination of an Academic with a deep knowledge of History, Law, Psychology, Geography, Economics, Mathematics, and the hard sciences, a Gambler who knows when to hold them, when to fold them and leaves them guessing whether whether its a bluff or a Royal Flush, an Illusionist who can convey whatever perception is appropriate, and an Entertainer who makes you want to tune in, even if you're from the other party. Ronald Reagan knew how to work a crowd, but knew less than nothing about the underlying Academics, much to our detriment. Bill Clinton was a slut, who would do ANYTHING for 'true love.' George W. Bush was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. And so forth. Maybe, since we are a very flawed people, we deserve very flawed leadership. We sure as hell have it. BSBD, Winsor

Like his predecessor he tends to say whatever comes across his mind, and 'truth' is rather an abstraction. At least he has senility working for him, and he does not generate a flurry of 'WTF?' tweets all night long. Given his propensity for plagiarism - which took hold when he was a schoolboy, and served him well throughout his career - you could blame some of his inaccuracies on whoever authored them in the first place. As far as his deft handling of numbers goes, one must bear in mind that his academic discipline was Law, where the meaning of numbers largely relates to how they sound. The difference between a 'million' and a 'billion' is, of course, one letter. BSBD, Winsor

How on Earth did you put together that garbled train of thought? I'm serious.

Dylan Roof is a singularly evil human, who would have served humanity well by choking on a chicken bone in kindergarten. I doubt if he gave much attention to the Woke ideology one way or another. Jussie Smollett was banking on the fawning attention of the Woke in his attempt to leverage the publicity, and they bought into it hook, line and sinker.

Examples of Woke as a Disease of Denial are all too common. Real injustice should be exposed and rooted out as a matter of course. If we are to survive as a society, it will be due to unity rather than 'diversity' (E Pluribus Unum and all that). That people should reflexively side with anything that fits their outlook can be useful for those who seek to capitalize on these preconceptions: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10289921/How-Jussie-Smolletts-lies-impacted-America.html Unfortunately, this case did not pass the sniff test for a second. What on Earth would possess a pair of people to be on the streets of Chicago at 02:00 and 20 F, wearing MAGA hats and carrying a symbolic noose and bleach? I've known too many people who had the shit beaten out of them for being gay, and it wasn't pretty. Why, after an attack, would the 'victim' not remove said noose immediately? Also, people who use nooses in racist attacks generally don't use clothesline, and typically don't use them for dramatic effect. What is the point of splashing bleach on someone? People who throw chemicals in the faces of those they oppose rarely use anything safer than battery acid. Throwing a drink in someone's face is closer to what Smollett claimed. Shouting 'this is MAGA country' is akin to Jeffrey McDonald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald claiming that the 'hippies' were saying things like 'acid is groovy' while murdering his family. At the time it happed, the general consensus was WTF? NOBODY talked like that at the time, though someone who'd spent the past few years overseas may have guessed wrong. And so forth. Smollett turns out to be a drama queen who tried to leverage this case to be a cause celebre, and to stay in the public eye while being written out of the show. It did not turn out well for him, and the people who reflexively backed his beyond-suspicious account have yet to question their initial reactions. 'Twas ever thus. BSBD, Winsor

In all seriousness you should probably killfile me. The likelihood that you will take anything I say for what it's worth appears to be vanishingly small, and if you aren't going to bother to respond with criticism and abuse I can't see why you would waste the time. YMMV.

Please give me some pointers. It's frustrating to fall short after so much effort.

I'm grateful for the dose of reality. Upon reflection, it is pretty obvious that the FDA is made up of bureaucratic pencil necks, who are notoriously slapdash regarding such things as statistics, procedure and the like. What a bunch of rubes. This is from a Pfizer submission, and they're not much better: I know I have an active imagination, know precious little about these things, and am grateful for people who take the time to show me the error of my ways. Your 'critical thinking' is most impressive, indeed. Boy, am I embarrassed. BSBD, Winsor

As far as you can tell, there isn't one. Given that ignorance is bliss, it would be mean of me to spoil your boundless happiness.

Pfizer Post Authorization Safety Data provided per FOIA. Check it out, it's enlightening.

Various reports indicate that there was some existing immunity in the population before COVID-19 hit, and this has been attributed to previous bouts of other Corona viruses, some of the 'common cold' viruses amongst them. In the same sense that Cowpox protected milkmaids from Smallpox, a variant of SARS-CoV-2 that has spike proteins for all the key receptors, but does not result in severe illness or long term effects (such as death), might confer broad immunity to those so infected. The Omicron variant could well turn out to be a blessing in disguise if it fits those criteria. Reports from South Africa indicate that it is infectious as hell, but requires medical intervention at about as often as does the Pfizer vaccine. Of course, if Omicron is either asymptomatic or results in a mild case, but results in people dropping dead six weeks later, this may not be ideal. BSBD, Winsor

Are you sure?

Depends on the anecdote and the statistics.

Rather a given. The trade off is where the cure becomes worse than the disease, and there are SOME instances where that is the case.

I'm unsure of what you think is my stance, but you're tilting at windmills. Optimizing any system involves minimizing a 'cost function.' Parameters may include time, money, personnel, military advantage, political capital or whatever is appropriate. I wholeheartedly agree with doing everything possible to avoid becoming 'symptomatic,' since the overall effects of the symptoms are outright ghastly. The pneumonia-like symptoms of COVID-19 make run of the mill pneumonia look like a gift from god by comparison, since they result not from generic fluid in the lungs but alveoli filled with hyaluronic acid and blood clots. Scarred tissue tends to have lifelong effects. My point regarding the adverse reactions to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is not that the risk outweighs the benefits, but that they are hardly without risk. Someone of advanced years would do well to get vaccinated, though we are sure to lose the odd patient as a result. Life is fatal, deal with it. When you get to vaccinating babies and very young children, a more careful risk/benefit analysis might be advisable. On the one hand, permanent damage to a toddler from symptomatic COVID-19 will have decades of consequences. OTOH, it appears that vanishingly small numbers of VOCID-19 infected youngsters require medical intervention. I don't have sufficiently granular data to perform a valid analysis, and our focus is on end-stage infection, but would be interested in a detailed evaluation from an unbiased source (as if there is such a thing). When you get people who push vaccines on the previously infected (there may be benefit) or little kids as a matter of policy, I'd like to see some trustworthy numbers before getting on that bandwagon. BSBD, Winsor

I know better than to bank on anecdotal evidence, but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects. Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention. People with whom I have had to cancel appointments of late due to active COVID-19 infection were all 'fully vaccinated' with either Pfizer or Moderna. Even though we are talking 'mild' infection, I still don't trust the long term effects of a clotting disorder - diffuse scar tissue resulting from blocked capillaries tends to remain scar tissue permanently. In large organizations the scum rises to the top. I've seen organizations where, when someone was needed to do the administrative dreck, they picked the least competent member of the team to shuffle paper and 'administrate.' Everyone else was too valuable implementing effective solutions to critical problems. Thus, if you have a discussion with the people from middle management on down, you tend to get a clear and detailed view of the problems being addressed, the game plan for doing so, and the status of the effort. If you talk to people in the corner office, the picture is often distorted by organizational and economic, rather than technical, realities. You begin to hear all too may buzzwords. The point here is that Hanlon's Razor, rather than 'conspiracy,' holds sway. H. L. Mencken's observation is thus prescient, whereby "for every complex problem there exists a solution that is simple, elegant - and wrong." COVID-19 is a case in point. BSBD, Winsor

I've probably linked this article before: https://www.covidviruslifecycle.com/ but it touches on the susceptibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to 3CL protease inhibitors. Since protease inhibitors successfully resolve difficult infections such as Hepatitis C genotype 1A and limit the expression of HIV to undetectable levels (unfortunately HIV remains in T cells, which have a 17 year lifespan IIRC), early use of 3CL protease inhibitors can serve to limit long term damage and to greatly limit infectiousness. For all their utility, while vaccines limit damage they reduce but do not eliminate infection, and the level and duration of viral shedding is effectively identical between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients - whether symptomatic or not. Since we've been working on vaccines for HIV for the better part of 40 years without success, it is impressive that we have achieved the limited success with SARS-CoV-2 as we have to date. However, to conclude that vaccination is the be-all end-all treatment is unrealistic. Hitting it from all angles, to include vaccines of course, is about the only realistic approach. BSBD, Winsor

If you actually have anything, have at it. Snark I can get anywhere.

As opposed to you, who demonstrate nothing. Don't bitch.

Nah, just playing into the claims that I lack knowledge by parties that can't back up their objections. Seems fair.

I didn't say I lacked formal education. I never bothered to get a B license, either.

As previously noted, you got nothing. Actually, less than nothing.

Out of curiosity, what do you think I do for a living? What in particular do you claim is "false" and on what basis? You appear to categorize me as an 'anti vaxxer.' If so, precisely what leads you to that conclusion?

Okay, this is what I meant by orthodoxy. If you want to address anything I have said line and verse, fine. If all you have is abuse, you have nothing. Just because I never finished High School does not mean my understanding of epidemiology is too weak to consider the effects - medical, political, social, economic and historic - of this virus. I have a passing familiarity with viruses, their treatment and prevention. Again, I am underwhelmed by the numbers for any of the vaccines, and contend that they offer insufficient protection against SARS-CoV-2. The extent of breakthrough infections, and the fact that virus shedding is equivalent between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated somewhat reduces the overall benefit of vaccination. Given natural selection, the virus that proliferates in a vaccinated individual is more likely to be resistant to the vaccine. Thus, the virus being shed by a breakthrough infection is more likely to result in further breakthrough infections. In any event, the vaccines have benefit, but they are certainly not harmless and their efficacy falls well short of 100%. It behooves us to continue research on other means of treatment and prevention if we are to get a handle on this bug. BSBD, Winsor

The article obliquely addressed my concern with the definition of what constitutes a "case," and that has varied. The probability of false positives or false negatives using PCR is a function of cycles. If it takes 40 cycles to detect, you're in pretty good shape; if you're positive at 10 cycles you're hosed. CDC guidelines seem to have changed over time, and it stood at 20 PCR cycles the last time I checked, where previously labs such as Quest Diagnostics would run 30 or 40. I've been tested repeatedly (negative so far), and when I've asked how many cycles they ran I didn't get much of an answer. I tend to look at case fatality rates to gauge the progress of the disease, but that is still less than exact. As far as how effective the vaccine is at suppressing the disease, Gibraltar is enlightening. I couldn't find a fringe web page for the data, so Reuters will have to do: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/gibraltar/ This may be no big deal, but basically every recent case has been in an overvaccinated population (they show 150%). If vaccination reduces the death rate, that's great. If it reduces permanent damage from the proliferation of blood clots of various sizes, that's wonderful as well. I suspect that, like HIV, it will take something along the lines of 3CL protease inhibitors to put the brakes on the disease. HIV is still around, but it is not wreaking havoc the way it did 30 years ago. BSBD, Winsor