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  • Fair, Balanced, and Scared Sh!+less (updated 25may20)

    George Rebane

    FoxNews‘Fair, balanced, and unafraid’ has been the smug, self-preening tagline for Fox News, most prominently used by Bret Baier as the sign-off to his daily flagship Special Report program.  Perhaps that was once true, but during the last couple of years FN has changed by markedly migrating toward the lamestream media.  While still covering news items totally absent or buried on leftwing outlets, the network bends over backward to feature as many progressive guests and commentators as possible on every issue of current interest.  Today it is literally impossible for a middle-road viewer to determine the ideological bent of most of FN’s programming during the 24-hour cycle.  The only exceptions to this are perhaps Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham.  These, however, are balanced with other FN stars such as Chris Wallace with a marked and longstanding tilt to port.

    The biggest change is that the palpable lies and propaganda narratives of leftwing guests and interviewees are no longer challenged for their verity.  These days the leftwinger can tell an obvious whopper, and the FN host will go on to the next question or subject without so much as lifting an eyebrow.   Led by Baier and Martha McCallum, the remaining daytime FN personalities do everything they can to avoid controversy on the air, and therefore leave its viewers to sort things out as they witness equal time and voice given to leftwing opinions and interpretations that not only go unchallenged, but are presented as having equal weight with any and all opposing opinions and interpretations.  Is it really fair to present obvious falsehoods without so-much as giving the audience some factual context within which to interpret such assertions?

    Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking FN to limit featuring its parade of leftwingers making news and shaping opinions.  But I am asking all so-called journalists to have the guts, then and there, to call out the obvious lies and baseless opinions of their guests, be they from the Right or Left.  (As RR’s polarized commenters have been doing for years.) And here’s the critical question every media interviewer should have the timely wits and courage to ask their guests each time they land a load of crap onto the airwaves –

    ‘Your viewpoint is fairly controversial, where can our viewers go to see the evidence that made you say that?’

    Timidly scurrying on to the next question or topic doesn’t cut it for the claim of being ‘Fair, balanced, and unafraid.’  Time to reinstall that backbone.

    [25may20 update] ‘The ‘Liberal Leaning’ Media Has Passed Its Tipping Point’, so confirms Van Gordon Sauter, former president of CBS News.  This is the belated point that many on the national scene are finally beginning to recognize.  A phenomenon that became apparent to many of us at the grassroots level years ago (RR stands on its 14-year record).  No one well-read on the socio-politics of America for the last 50 years believes that the country’s Fourth Estate will ever regain its credibility – journalists are all biased ideologues lying to their audiences about being ‘fair and balanced’.  All we are now doing is the Great Divide two-step that is becoming more pronounced with every passing month.  Any semblance of a middle ground disappeared years ago.  Look at the 14-year record of RR comment streams, which confirm an unpretentious, simple yet significant reflection of Main Street America’s understanding, beliefs, and sentiments.

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  • Journalists’ Opinions

    George Rebane

    City Editor of The Union, Alan Riquelmy, writes that ‘What matters is your opinion’ in the 20may20 edition of the newspaper.  His op-ed piece is about the Tara Reade imbroglio, and his involvement interviewing the lady and her contacts.  But that’s not what drew my interest in his remarks.  Let me begin with the admission that I don’t know Mr Riquelmy personally, have perhaps howdied with him at some local affair we both attended, and have exchanged cordial emails about some Other Voices pieces I have submitted for publication.  But from what I do know of him, everything confirms that he’s a fine gentleman and a diligent journalist doing a commendable job during difficult times at The Union.  Full disclosure:  As a member of the Union’s editorial board, Jo Ann has known and worked with Mr Riquelmy during the years she has been on the board, and she speaks highly of him.

    What really piqued my interest in Riquelmy’s op-ed, and actually gave me concern, was his attitude about opinions that people, including him, hold.  Since Ms Reade has local roots, Riquelmy did some interviews with her about her allegations and published them in the newspaper.  The word got out that Riquelmy might have some new perspectives about Reade that would be of interest to wider national audiences.  Therefore, some media reporters wanted to interview Riquelmy, but he “declined all of them”, stating that “the reason is because my opinion on Reade and her allegations doesn’t matter.”

    I would take exception to that sentiment/belief.  There’s more here than just his opinion on Reade and her allegations.  What may be of greater importance is how he, as an experienced professional journalist, came to the opinions he formed from his interviews and research.  Most certainly that is my greater interest, and I submit is also the interest of other media professionals.  Today, opinions about Reade et al are a dime a dozen, but Riquelmy had a unique opportunity to form his opinions, and that is of interest.

    If we take a step back, we see that ‘matter’ is itself a subjective opinion.  What and how something matters is in the eye of the matterer.  Since none of us can claim to be paragons of objectivity, how someone of note and interest forms opinions and views of the world matters much, in this case to Mr Riquelmy’s readers of whom I am one.  We who regularly read the words that he puts through his ‘matter filter’ would benefit knowing about the contours, tenets, and operation of that filter.  Because such a matter filter is an embodiment of one's belief system, knowing of it we will know from where someone's ideas and assertions are coming.

    Without such knowledge, the reader is left to solve two intertwined puzzles – first, understanding the chosen words and how they were assembled, and second, from what foundation did such choices and assembly arise.  Today, journalism is one of the few professions that has long been consigned to the bilges of public opinion, and for very good reasons.  One of them is the journalists’ assumed hubristic mantle of objectivity, which almost all of them wear poorly.  A journalist who reveals certain relevant tenets of his belief system to readers would be a breath of fresh air to the profession.  And who knows, it may even become a welcome new standard to lift the media industry from its dismal depths.

    Coda.  As RR readers know, I am an explicitly professed ideologue, commentator, and definitely NOT a journalist (more here).  However, I pride myself in having the confidence to make my own credo (belief system) fully known to my readers, along with a glossary of terms which I use that may have a more specific or different definition than found in dictionaries, or worse, incorrectly assumed by the reader. (see upper right panel)  My credo is not poured in concrete or recorded on stone tablets.  Instead, it is open to critical examination by one and all, and since I am a Bayesian, it is malleable in the Keynesian sense.  As Fisher and Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project taught us long ago (more here), the subject matter discussed in these pages demands nothing less.  The only downside I’ve encountered is that readers, either innumerate and/or burdened with calcified ideologies, have not always found my ideas easy to understand.  Nevertheless, I soldier on. 

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  • Sandbox – 20may20

    [Apologies for the delay in getting new sand.  In future sandboxes I'll try to notify readers of topics I cover in subsequent commentaries so that their topical comments can find the appropriate comment stream.  gjr]

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  • Scattershots – 17may20 (updated 19may20)

    George Rebane

    Two-faced reporting.  How many times have we seen the same liberal reporter be comfortable with two distinct narratives depending on whether they are on FN or NPR, CNN, or any other lamestream outlet.  Unfortunately, NPR’s politics correspondent and a woman of gravitas, Mara Liasson is such a two-faced journalist.  As an FN panelist for years, she always presents very balanced views of the topics discussed.  However, when we see her elsewhere, especially on NPR’s home turf, Mara becomes an extremely convincing hyper-partisan with an extremely effective delivery of the current TDS narrative.  Last Saturday morning Mara did her pirouette from Trump-the-Russian-colluder to Trump-the-one-who-Russia-put-in-the-WH.  With her even pitched alto voice she intoned how “All of our intelligence agencies agree that Russia influenced our election in Trump’s favor”.  With that assertion she would have been eaten alive on FN.  There was no discernment between ‘sought to influence’ (for which there is evidence), and “influenced” (for which successful fait accompli there is absolutely no evidence).  But Mara, a true patriot of the progressive cause, let her NPR audience know again that Trump’s 2016 victory remains illegitimate and a fraud perpetrated by a foreign power.  And frosting on the cake was her accusation that Trump attempted to “cover up Russia’s influence”(??!!), all which is the new post-collusion narrative heading into the election now that the four-year collusion farce has proved to be an embarrassment.

    ‘Largest ever DMT survey travels to the fringes of psychedelic science’.  This psychedelic drug – also known as psilocybin and formally N,N-dimethyltryptamine – is today “on the cusp of final FDA approaval as groundbreaking PTSD (and suicide) treatment.”  An additional benefit of the widespread use of this drug will accrue to the elderly who often are depressed, lonely, and desperately are trying to stave off their fear of death.  DMT would literally then give them new lives for their remaining years.  (more here)

    Obamagate – “… the fact is that we already have more compelling evidence that the Obama administration engaged in misconduct than we ever did for opening the Russian-collusion investigation.” (more here)  And this is not a conspiracy, it is instead the beginning of a large-scale criminal investigation that will be driven by evidence made widely accessible, and opposed by all the forces of collectivism and globalism that are taking an historic hit during this hyper-fabricated C19 ‘crisis’.  Having said that, the outcome is by no means certain, given the Left’s control of our media, education, entertainment, and the deluge of embedded dumbth that has already covered the land.  The proponents of Obamagate may well end up in re-education camps.

    [18may20 update]  Sanctuary cities are popping up, much to the chagrin of lockdown liberals.  Atwater, CA is one of the latest as reported here in the American Thinker.  (H/T to reader)  I guess both sides can have sanctuary cities, “sanctuary from tyrannical government draining the lifeblood from the people”.  “The Dems are discovering that with sanctuary cities, what goes around … comes around.”  The Left’s sanctuary cities are designed to weaken America, and the Right’s are hell-bent on saving America.  In our Sandbox you can see the glee with which liberals report any rise in C19 cases, again confirming what future they all root for.

    [19may20 update] Interesting column by George Boardman in the 19may20 Union (here).  His outline of the cases facing SCOTUS is informative and reveals just a tinge of his TDS and political leanings.  He also gives today’s betting industry a treatment.  Bad news for sports-betting going forward, but he does encourage the ability to place bets on distinct outcomes of non-sports events like election winners, political appointments, sex-abuse allegations, etc.  Readers will recall that RR also described such a betting market with proceeds going to winner-designated charities.  All in all, Mr Boardman gave us some good food for thought.

    Reopening the country is yet one more polarizing experience for America.  This is now beginning to be seen by national commentators in major publications.  Such an attitude toward returning to a healthy post-covid state of affairs was apparent to many of us two months ago.  RR readers were aware of and extensively started discussing this ‘perfect storm’ for progressives.  Writers like congress critter Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) asks and answers ‘Why Does Reopening Polarize Us?’, and he almost gets it right (here).  His labored insight is that “The divide over lockdowns reflects deeper differences in attitudes about risk, liberty and morality.”  Actually, he misses it on ‘risk’ and ‘morality’, but hey, batting 333 is good in any league.  The Dems have the exact same assessment of reopening risk as do the Repubs; both know that the economy will bloom again and the deaths will be minimal when we reopen.  The Right welcomes it, the Left is terrorized by it.  And morality as a guiding principle for the Left is and always has been a joke – recall cracked eggs and omelettes.  Today we hear a lot of them promote lockdown policies with use the old moral shibboleth, ‘If it saves even one life, then it’s worth doing.’  According to Rebane Doctrine, that competes for the all-time, most butt-stupid belief award, especially when held by public officials.

    Covering anything beyond the C19 news is now a “diversion” as far as the Dems and their lamestream lackeys are concerned – that’s the new narrative.  Never mind what all else is going on in the world, and especially in the rapidly developing Obamagate case involving Gen Flynn and three years of Russia collusion lies fostered by federal agencies at the highest levels.  And a judge who is so far outside the law that it defies classification – a court is supposed to adjudicate cases that are brought to it by legal adversaries, when none exist, then the judge of the court has no legal basis for starting to beat the bushes in order to make/revive a case.  But that makes no never mind to the evil Dems, the only news that’s fit to print today involves only their allegations against the Trump administration.

    Pogo1971Hear about the new regs prescribing how the NFL must recruit head coaches?  Yep, the gummint has a new role defined for itself.  Now each team looking for a new head coach must certify that it has included at least two, count ‘em, two blacks for the job.  There’s a new one for the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Any peoples willing to put up with this kind of bullshit deserves its chains.  As Pogo once said, ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us.’

    C19 testing continues as a source of abundant heat and no light.  The Dems are still screaming about the lack of testing.  All the while hundreds of thousands of test kits are sitting on shelves all over the country unwanted and unused.  No one yet has any idea about what kind of tests should be used in what kind of feasible testing programs to support what kind of public policy decisions.  The only use for ‘testing’ in America is as a political football played by politicians and watched by over 300 million double dummies who have no idea what the real issues are.  We just sit there and nod or shake our heads, depending … .  (example here) Check on Pogo, one mo’ tahme.

     

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  • Unsettling ‘Settled Science’

    [This commentary was also published here in the 3jun20 edition of The Union.]

    George Rebane

    None are so certain about science as those outside looking in.

    Today, the SARS-CoV-2 (or Covid-19 or simply C19) pandemic ‘science’ in the public square rapidly became a mish-mash of unreliable reports, contending medical views, and ideologically tailored fake news.  One thing you can always take to the bank – people claiming ‘settled science’ is the litmus test for identifying the charlatans, the ignorant, and the ignorant charlatans.  Historically all important scientific advances were met with an overwhelming chorus of opposition from the entrenched establishment.  Their consistent theme was citing how the new was not in accord with the old, or worse, that the new directly contradicted the long and dearly held beliefs.  In our highly polarized and politicized society, it is safe to say that all reports purporting a solid scientific foundation are at a minimum suspect.

    The C19 virus has been uniformly mischaracterized in the popular press and politics.  As more and more evidence climbs out from under widespread media (broadcast and internet) censorship, it becomes clear that the national lockdown was and continues to be a horrible mistake of yet to be tallied cost in lives and livelihoods.  And that lockdown was imposed by governments citing ‘science’ when no such science existed to support the mandates to shutdown commerce and impose stay-at-home.  It now turns out that C19 is only a bit more virulent than our seasonal flus, and the cited data claiming otherwise is dreadfully flawed and misreported.

    Many reasoned, reasonable, and experienced voices have sought to counsel holding back on the draconian measures our politicians have imposed on the country.  An example of one of the more recent ones is epidemiologist Dr Knut Wittkowski, former head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science (here).  He points out that, far from being settled, the science around C19 is “bitterly contested”, as confirmed by anyone doing an internet search on the topic.  The bottom line that the expanding data on the pandemic now shows is that C19 is NOT significantly more dangerous than our usual infectious diseases (which don’t require forsaking freedoms and destroying economies), unless you have an age-related comorbidity.  And then you are in line to die anyway, either of an unfortunate C19 infection or something else.

    Sadly, Americans don’t ‘do numbers’.  We are an overwhelmingly innumerate nation educated in dumbed-down public schools that have a decades-long record of abysmal and declining performance now imposed on the third generation of young people as documented by the National Center for Education Statistics of the Department of Education.  And when it comes to STEM-based knowledge, you can forget it.  As a population, we are at the mercy of the loudest demogauges that rise above the media cacophony, with no way to even reasonably assess alternative viewpoints and opinions.  We have found that the safe and sane way to handle the daily conflicts and conundrums is to adopt a simple set of beliefs, view everything through its lens, and comingle within a cohort of common, confirming, and comfortable minds.

    Those who have spent their lives in and with science have an easier time and a natural inclination to say ‘it ain’t necessarily so’, and then use their skills to examine and evaluate alternative explanations.  But not everyone so blessed will voice such doubts if their job, livelihood, and/or reputation depends on swimming with the established school of thought that succors the correctly like-minded with grants, stipends, tenure, endowed chairs, published peer-approved papers, … .  And unfortunately, science is such a multi-variegated field that there is a lot of latitude in the words that can be chosen to support or remain circumspect about any scientific position.

    Politicians like Governors Cuomo (NY) and Newsom (CA), and Mayors de Blasio (NYC) and Garcetti (LA) have been quick to tell their flocks that their lockdown and loosening mandates are based on science not politics.  And those carefully taught in their compliant constituencies have no available alternative than believe in the cited ‘science’ dispensed from on high.

    At this point your columnist will usually offer a solution to get us out of today’s judiciously fabricated dilemma – ‘profits before people’ or ‘people before profits’.  Unfortunately, those of us having spent our lives in and with science can offer no science-based acceptable solution, because here it is all politics.  Today America’s answer to Keynes’ immortal question, ‘When I get new information, I change my mind.  What do you do?’, is a confidently calcified ‘Nothing.’

    [Addendum]  People are now being told of herd immunity thresholds (HITs).  These are percentages of populations immune, at the crossing of which herd immunity kicks in and does the good things variously reputed to it – primarily starts tilting the number of currently infected curve downward.  M. Gomes et al have done a recent study of how individual variation in susceptibility and likelihood of exposure (actually exposure rate) to C19 would lower the herd immunity threshold (here).  It’s a technical paper with squigglies, but also fairly readable graphs, and therefore worth reading by the non-techie by just skipping over the obtuse parts and concentrating on what’s known, and what’s known to be unknown.

    The takeaway is that at best today’s C19 HITs lie somewhere between 10% and 70% of target populations.  The authors also go into some detail on what is required to nail down a HIT, and doing it doesn’t look promising for any time soon.  The good news from the analysis is another corroboration that lockdowns do little to reduce morbidity or mortality.  Sooner or later the susceptibles have to come out, become the exposed, and get infected.  Depending on how many were hunkered down and now out-and-about, the next wave will be big or small.

    So we come full circle on the argument presented here and elsewhere – do away with the lockdowns, and let people prudently go about their business knowing that there’s a bug out there that is likely to kill the elderly with comorbidities, against which there still is no vaccine, but for which the likelihood of your getting a debilitating infection starts out low and diminishes with every passing day as herd immunity increases.

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  • Image of ignorance and/or incompetence (updated 14may20)

    George Rebane

    C19nonsenseTo again illustrate what we have been talking about the government’s basis for C19 policy decisions, the above graph and its annotation (from the 13may20 SacBee here) show raw test positive (TP) ratios over time, giving no hint of either the test’s reliability parameters, the tested sample (size and provenance), or knowledge that raw TP fractions are next to useless in low prevalence populations and need to be corrected to obtain actual population fractions to support policy decisions.  If any of these people, starting with WHO personnel and working down to the state level, claim to have a relevant education to qualify them for their positions, they have every right to demand a full tuition refund from the school(s) they attended.  Unfortunately, the beat goes on.

    [update]  Here’s another example of what NO ONE is telling the unquestioning public, and no one knows to ask (or even cares as witnessed by RR commenters).  The graphic below shows two curves for a certain ‘infection test’ – the blue one is the probability of actually being currently infected with the C19 virus, given that your test came back positive; and the orange one gives the probability that you are free of the virus, given that your test came back negative.  The test’s sensitivity, P(TP|V), and specificity, P(-TP|-V), are shown.  Our prevalence (fraction of population currently infected) is at most 5% or 0.05.  So if your test came back positive, the chance P(V|TP) that you actually had the disease is only 0.333 or one out of three.  That means that it’s two out of three that you are not infected.  However, at such a low prevalence if your test came back negative, the chance P(-V|-TP) that you don’t have the coronavirus is 0.9994, or almost certain that you are virus free.  The problem now is what are you or anyone else going to do with those test results.

    C19_ActualInfectionProbs

    Well, if you tested positive you can always request to be tested again.  Given that first positive, if the second test comes back positive again, your probability of having the virus jumps up to 0.826 or a little more than 9 out of 11.  If the second test comes back negative, then your probability of being infected drops to 0.027, or about 1 out of 40.  The question now is, what facilities will be available to do multiple testing on each individual so as to push the probability of infection or of no infection beyond some required threshold that determines what to do with the patient.  The answer is ‘no one knows’ because no one has considered these questions amid the cries for testing and more testing – there is no guidance to the states, and apparently the states aren’t smart enough to determine and announce their own probabilities and response thresholds.  Among all the shouting about testing, that’s the reality of how the pandemic is being handled by government healthcare ‘experts’.

    [14may20 update]  As we have been telling readers, lockdown is NOT a solution – short or longterm. ‘Stanford Antibody Studies Indicate No Safe Option for Eradicating COVID-19, Including Lockdown’.

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  • Liberty’s Twilight – 13may20

    George Rebane

    Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her Louisville, KY home when the police erroneously broke through her front door in the middle of the night seeking a narcotics suspect who was already in police custody.  Not knowing the invaders during the break-in, Ms Taylor’s boyfriend sought to defend themselves by shooting one of the assailants in the leg.  In the following melee the other police officers returned fire, pumping eight rounds into Ms Taylor and killing her.  Her boyfriend was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of a police officer.  The family is now suing the police department (more here).

    Over the years we have lost count of this kind of mistaken killings of innocents by incompetent law enforcement agencies.  But that is not the real point here.  What’s germane is that our homes are no longer our castles.  We have no right to defend ourselves within the confines of our own four walls when LE executes one of its surprise assaults into our living quarters, our most inner sanctums.  These unnecessary attacks mimic criminal home invasions which now, according to the ever-growing leviathan, put the onus on the home owner to ascertain the identity of those breaking through his front door BEFORE he is allowed to start defending himself.  The assailant now has the de jure right to take the first shots at the victim.  And only after the assailant’s identity has been confirmed by the victim, can his defense begin.  Moreover, in some states it’s not even legal to ‘stand your ground’ in your own house if it is later determined that you could have retreated out of the back door or an open window.  The law has been stood on its head, and we sheeple must comply.

    In a practical sense, there is never a need for LE to ambush someone with deadly force in a known residence.  The state always has the resources to surround the habitat and then make their presence known.  LE officers breaking and entering in the middle of the night is now an established tactic of state thuggery.  According to our Constitution and Rebane Doctrine, an American has every right to initiate the use of deadly force against any unidentified assailant who forcefully enters his home.  And an innocent man being accused of attempted murder of a police officer after such an incident is the beyond-cynical elimination of the last vestiges of justice that should be brought to bear after such a tragic incident.  Our quiet acceptance of these proceedings, just because it happened in distant Louisville, is testimony to how inured we all have become to the growth of our autocratic governments in these United States.

    (more…)

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  • Testing – One mo’ tahme (updated 11may20)

    George Rebane

    The discussions about the procedures, reliability, timeliness, types, … of testing in the media, and even in these pages, can bring a smile to the lips of those with a modicum facility with numbers.  People still believe that testing for active infections at current levels (about 5%) of C19 prevalence is the secret sauce to stopping the epidemic within these shores.  The Left uses this argument to lambast Trump – if he’d only started test making and testing earlier, then none of this would have happened.  Any realistic look at the timing, what we knew when, and the logistics involved would reveal these arguments as sophomoric, destined for even more simple ears.

    Contagious diseases spread through a population by a process in science known as diffusion, a physical process that is described by some really snarly partial differential equations.  As we have discussed in these pages, epidemiologists have broken it down into a couple of graspable concepts (to some) in the forms of “the basic reproductive number”, R0, and herd immunity.  R0 can be understood as the number of vulnerable people an infectious person will infect in a relatively short interval after becoming contagious, which is of the order of a week or less in a low prevalence population like ours today.  According to the CDC (‘High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2’), the Wuhan population diffusion data indicated an initial R0 = [2.2-2.7] which subsequent analysis upped to R0 = 5.7, (95% CI 3.8–8.9).

    The CDC paper gives even the technical reader a bit of a headache as to how their analysts handled the multiple levels of modeling complexities, each requiring the use of blatantly brown numbers to fill in for the unknowns and the barely perceived.  But CDC’s timing the receipt of the China data and its subsequent massagings again makes clear that there was no chance for anyone in America (or Europe) to have been sufficiently prescient to comply with the butt-stupid accusations of Trump’s mishandling preparations for the onset of C19 on these shores.  Unfortunately, it takes a technician with some appreciation for the math and probabilistics involved to understand how facetious these know-nothing charges from the Left are – however, the sheeple remain clueless and at the mercy of the loudest shouters.

    But back to the numbers.  Today, 10may20, we are told that there are approximately 20K/day of new confirmed C19 cases, each of whom have already contributed their reproductive number of new cases that will become apparent in about a week.  We may safely assume that at least another 20K/day will remain asymptomatic, with each doing their R0 subrosa infections, and recovering on their own.  If we take the CDC’s low end R0 of about 2.5, then we have an infection doubling time of about a week.  That means that the 20K+20K infected individuals have now become 80K, with the symptomatic ones waiting to be discovered.  Now consider what level of infection testing is required to ferret out these 40K infected persons from a population of 330M containing, say, 20 high density, interacting (diffusing) sub-populations, before some of them become symptomatic, how many thousands will be missed by even the most comprehensive testing programs (which I have covered in detail), and what was the contacts fan-out for each of these infectious persons before they were taken off the streets.

    It is this fan-out of contacts which now must be traced, tested, and quarantined in very short order.  And it doesn’t stop there, the fan-outs have fan-outs have …, I hope you get the idea how this expanding ripple-cum-tsunami works.  There aren’t enough tests, or timely and reliable testing procedures, or fan-out tracers to even make a pin prick in the numbers required to "control" C19 or any other human-to-human contagious disease in dense, high population areas, except perhaps at the earliest level when there are substantially fewer than maybe 100 infected, and when all response systems are assembled, alert, properly positioned, and ready to leap into action (think of the cost to maintain such systems at the ready in perpetuity, like the fire department or EMT).  And at such a low number of infecteds, the authorities will take a week or two to confirm what’s happening, then scratch their asses, and puzzle out some initial inevitably ineffective response.  That’s what happened, and will happened again and again.

    OK boys and girls, can we all now spell ‘H-E-R-D  I-M-M-U-N-I-T-Y’, and then ‘V-A-C-C-I-N-E’?

    [11may20 update] Well, well, well – we finally have someone from the medical community starting to think strategically about the realities of testing, something we’ve been doing on RR for almost two months.  Philadelphia cardiologist Dr Anish Koka offers his quantitative take on testing in ‘Why More Testing Won’t Solve The COVID-19 Crisis’ that concludes, “Inherent limitations of the tests we currently have make it unlikely that applying testing to the entire population is going to be very useful.”  His incomplete analysis ranges between confusing and clutsy, mainly because he doesn’t understand the role of Bayesian inference in computing the results from unreliable tests applied to populations with an estimated prevalence of a disease.  But not to put too fine a point on it, the published attempt is a start of actually dealing with the realworld factors of testing, factors which continue to be absent in today’s national C19 dialogue.  Innumeracy at our highest levels of leadership, let alone the know-nothing media, is such a curse in our nation, mostly because no gives a crap about such ignorance.  (RR shibboleth: If you don’t understand the numbers related to a social problem, then you don’t understand the problem and can only emote about it.)

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  • Scattershots – 10may20 (updated 14may20)

    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 –

    C19_lockdownEffectiveness

    SgtBumblebrainBiden 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.

     

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  • Sandbox – 10may20

    [It’s remarkable how well these C19 utility functions perform in their ability to predict the statements – ranging from policies to pabulum – of the three cohorts today exhorting us to do this vs that.

    C19utilitiesFor those comfortable with such models of the realworld, they compress a whole lot of explanatory power about the debate to loosen the lockdown. (more here).  gjr]

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