George Rebane

Medicos’ use of ventilators for C19 patients is changing.  It seems that the virus has exposed another major area of ignorance for us about the workings of the human body.  Some patients exhibit blood oxygen levels that were previously symptomatic of imminent organ failure and death, and their standard of care would call for immediate intubation.  Instead, they feel quite well (more here).  So the docs are holding back on strapping them into ventilators, which is correctly classified as an invasive treatment.  I bring this up in the context of my longstanding gimlet eye view of the entire medical profession.  With the many birthdays under my belt, I’ve had several opportunities as a systems engineer to work closely with some leading physicians in cardio-vascular and oncology fields developing decision algos and medical devices.  Bottom line, I have come to know the contours and boundaries of their professional knowledge bases.  None of them have the basis to deport themselves hubristically, and the good ones don’t.  In working with them, I have always been treated as a peer as we mutually acknowledged how the realworld has from time to time kicked us in the butt when we started behaving a bit uppity in thinking that we knew it all.  It is in this light, the counsel of our ‘healthcare heros’ should be taken with a grain of salt or two as they pontificate about C19 response policies.  A current example of this is the Left’s fight against the use of HCQ in the treatment of early onset patients which continues in the comment stream and the 10may20 update to ‘Fighting C19’.

South Korea’s second wave may be about to start.  Over 50 new cases traced to a single infectious bar hopper in Seoul have been registered, and most likely more on the way.  But that will not shut down SK’s economy; it will just give rise to some focused pullback measures.  We will undoubtedly have similar occurrences as we loosen our lockdown.  But when that happens, we can expect screams of anguish from the lamestream and additional demands to investigate Trump from the evil Dems.  To all of them, it will just be another blessing with which to torpedo the president’s re-election bid.

Teaching Western civilization has almost disappeared from academe.  Why?  Because white Europeans are a singularly evil race on this planet – the only ones to invade and treat other civilizations in manners unspeakably heartless.  To those of us who were first introduced to history when the subject was still an intellectual quest, we learned and confirmed from ample evidence that all civilizations of Man have expanded their domains and influence through conquest when that was possible.  And this has continued onto this day.  Historian Prof Andrew Roberts, of King’s College London and Stanford’s Hoover Institution, offers a compelling counter in his ‘Why We Must Teach Western Civilization’ wherein he makes the strong point that “the legacy of our culture is  unsurpassed in human history, to ignore it is an act of rank self-hatred.”  Our Left knows in the marrow of their bones that this knowledge dispersed will be the greatest impediment to achieving their Orwellian objectives, and they have acted accordingly.  (Readers recall one of RR’s paramount shibboleths – ‘I am a child, student, and defender of Western Civilization’.)

Consensus, consensus, wherefore art thou?  I recently opined again on the Great Divide, pointing out that we Americans are now a sorry lot, not being able to come together even in the face of a national emergency, instead using it to divide us further.  Kevin Wilson’s ‘Who Killed Consensus?’ expands on this.

[12may20 update]  Various media are attempting to inform their readers on simereasonable ways to understand economic recovery, specifically, what different measures of a recovery would look like.  The most accessible definitions involve plots of GDP that show the C19 dip, and then various paths back up (e.g. see 12may20 WSJ print edition graphs).  Looking at these attempts of explaining various ‘V-shaped’ vs ‘swoosh’ recoveries, we recall the stifling pace of the Obama recovery.  During those years RR readers were made aware of a better presentation (here) that may bear repeating now.  The bottom line is that recoveries come in many flavors, and most journalists and politicians don’t know what they’re talking about when they pontificate to the masses to whom recovery means only when it doesn’t hurt any more.

Today’s headline – ‘Fauci Warns of “Needless Suffering and Death” if U.S. Reopens Too Quickly’.  So what are you supposed of make of that profound tautology.  Well, start by trying to understand what some talking head or expert means by ‘needless’.   Does Fauci know of ways to remain hunkered down without some suffering and death; or continuing to hunker will result only in needed s&d; or are there ways of achieving the same pace of recovery by reopening later or at a different pace which then results in acceptable or ‘needed’ s&d; or … ?  You get the drift here.  Does anyone really know what such an obvious platitude means?  Most thinkers know the utility of such pabulum in the public media – it’s put out there for political reasons to be used by various proponents of various narratives.  While medical expertise was implied, none was delivered – Joe the Plumber could easily have brought us the same message with the same understanding and information content, but it would not have landed with the same political panache as from the now-iconic Dr Fauci.  We have to be aware of how we are carefully taught.

Lockdown Effectiveness – On WUWT David Middleton answers the question –

Biden knows NOTHING of the extensive Obama plot to destroy the Trump administration launched early in 2016 and carried out continuously since the President was inaugurated on 20 January 2017.   Bumblebrain has made extensive claims how he and Barack worked cheek-by-jowl to bring about all the ‘good things’ that he wants to take credit for while serving as Vice President.  But somehow and mysteriously, President Obama cut him out of the advise and consent loop when it came to the meticulously executed plan to eliminate Gen Mike Flynn from the Trump administration and destroy his private life.  Like the immortal Sgt Schultz of ‘Hogan’s Heros’, on the developing disgraceful Flynn scandal, Bumblebrain claims, ‘I know nothing, nothing!’

[14may20 update]  One of Nevada City’s communists Nory Fussel in the 14may20 Union writes about Jeff Bezos’ $140B wealth (here), and lets us know that his money really belongs to the government (‘the peehpul’).  His having earned that amount is “socially insane, immoral, and therefore almost certainly criminal”.  Not only is Ms Fussel an ideological idiot, she also has no concept of arithmetic, numbers, and the length of a year.  She tells us that if we could appropriate “only one-half of his stash, … (we could) write a check in the amount of $2,600 to each of the (27M unemployed)”.  To give you a real idea of her room temp IQ, the woman claims, “If you spent $1 million per day, every day since Jesus walked on earth, you would still not have (spent) $1 billion.”  Absolutely amazing – not only about her arithmetic, but because today it’s not only legal, but exemplary for her to submit a ballot that counts as much as your vote when everything is added up.  Now that’s what the Left calls social justice.