My Father in law, who is in his 80s, called his local town health dept. here in MA to see when he could get his vaccine. They told him that they had not received their allocation from the federal government.
| Jurisdiction | Doses distributed | Doses administered | % shots used |
|---|
| Massachusetts | 669,325 | 257,175 | 38.4 |
If you want some improbable (yet true, I swear) data, my last three runs on a certain 6.05 mile route are a good example.
I ran exactly (according to my Garmin) 50:51 each of the last three times. And the thing of is that most of the time I run around 54 - 56 minutes for the route, so these are fast for me.
Now that I think of it, the speed may provide an answer: Maybe, due to lack of the usual injuries, I've been running flat-out and 50:51 is more-or-less my limit.
Still seems as if there would be a few seconds of spread in there.
There are really only two explanations: One is very tin-foil hat and the other disproves the media narrative.
First, the conspiracy explanation: The Democrats wanted protesters to get into the Capitol as a way of taking the wind out of the very fishy election. I think this is unlikely because, unhinged as they are, I do not (yet) think they are that evil. But mostly, I don't think they have the physical bravery to take that sort of personal risk.
Second, while the media narrative is that leftist's protests are always peaceful or mostly peaceful, anything conservative is considered very threatening. Remember the TEA party protests? They were like geriatric garden parties but always described in the darkest terms. What really happened is that everyone knows that conservative protests are peaceful. So, when one turned out to be only mostly peaceful, the police presence was wholly inadequate.
Contrast with protests outside the White House: The mostly peaceful protests had left American cities shell-shocked, burned and boarded-up. Of course the security outside the White House was tight. It wasn't as if ANTIFA and BLM were Boy Scouts, security forces knew what they were facing and were prepared.
Our Dog has been getting up in years and in some ways this has become a pain. For instance, she used to be able to jump up onto our bed and would do so a few times/night. The problem was that she would insist on being helped-up multiple times per night.
So I thought, why not build her a set of stairs? The risk was that I would put a lot of work and materials into something solid, like plywood and then she would refuse to use it. My solution was to mock-up something with cardboard, since there are always a few boxes that we need to get rid-of in the basement.
This worked! She would use the mocked-up stairs. After time, I noticed that her claws were denting the material and due to nature of cardboard, she would slip. It was only a matter of a couple of wipe-outs and she would become afraid to use it.
Now, we had been working on some flooring projects in both 2nd floor bathrooms and if you know anything about the process, it involves many iterations of thin-set cement/mortar. I took to applying skim coats of left-over cement to the cardboard. My initial goals were to give her better traction, protect the surface from her claws and add a bit of stabilizing mass. In successive coats, I started using old window screen material to reinforce, first 90 degree angles and later, whole planes.
Finally, it has felt on the bottom, so you can slide the, now pretty heavy, thing around and it is strong enough to support my 155 lbs. I even painted it with some 20 year old paint, which was somehow still good.
This was all done about a month ago--around the time all the kids got home from their various colleges for the holidays. I had just used these stairs to reach a bug on the ceiling and indicated to my wife--who had asked for the bug to be dealt-with, "Considering all the work that went into these, why didn't I just make something out of wood? It would have taken a lot less time and been stronger"?
She, unlike me, remembered and reminded me of the history of the project.
Sometimes you are stuck with what works rather than with what would have been the better solution.
There are three main constraints to ending this Covid plague:
1. FDA approval of the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna
2. Supply of vaccine doses
3. Reluctance of people to take the vaccine
In my opinion, The media has put the importance level of these factors as: 3 > 2 >>1, which is the exact opposite of their importance level.
If we have one dose or a billion doses, this doesn't matter if they sit in freezers instead of being injected into arms. And time matters. The sooner we begin vaccinating the sooner the death rate declines and the sooner the economy recovers. It is like if John Deere has an excavator already built, there is an obvious benefit to getting it into the hands of a contractor now, rather than 3 months from now. The company gets paid for its work and the contractor can earn money with the equipment.
At this point in time, if half the country refuses the vaccine, so what? Pfizer is only promising 20 million doses through Dec. and Moderna will have at most 100 million in the first quarter of 2021. So who cares if there are people who don't want the vaccine? There isn't enough to supply the people who want it.
The FDA approval is the key bottleneck: Companies will be more willing to produce supply when they are certain to be able to sell it, which doesn't happen until it is approved. More people will be willing to take the vaccine when they see that 100 million of their compatriots took it and suffered no ill-effects. Either way, if 1/3 the population suddenly becomes immune, this will slow the spread among the unvaccinated and allow more of the economy to open up.
My first semester as a night-school MBA student was very hectic. Normally, I would walk from where I worked, on one end of campus at the Dept. of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, to the business school at the opposite side of the university grounds. The MBA classes were all at night since, like me, most of the students had day-jobs and were taking classes part time.
In October I was selected to be on a jury. The location was only a mile from school but the problem was that since we lived walking distance from campus, I walked every day and saw no need for the expense of a parking permit. I could have walked from our apartment to the trial in the morning, but there was no way to get from court to classes on time without driving. Three weeks and lots of UVM parking tickets later, it was over, but I've since wondered what became of the guy we convicted? Once we pronounced him guilty, we were done. I don't recall hearing about the sentence. Presumably a long term: First degree murder and all.
I found an appeal, which he lost, here.
Castleton, Vermont. While investigating the area, the body of John Kenworthy was discovered about twenty-five feet from the house, with his arms bound behind him and an oil-soaked shirt wrapped around one arm. He had been stabbed approximately sixty to seventy times, his left hand had been fractured, and he had been hit in the head with a blunt instrument like a hammer or baseball bat.
Police investigating the homicide learned that Kenworthy had been married to Sandra Crannell from 1980 to 1982. Sandra had recently been divorced from defendant, Charles Crannell. Defendant lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and had been attempting to reconcile with Sandra. He drove a 1985 two-tone Corvette that several witnesses reported seeing in Castleton during the hours immediately before and after the murder. One witness saw the car as well as defendant and described defendant as wearing a “watch cap.” Such a cap was discovered near the crime scene. Police learned from Sandra that she had obtained a restraining order to keep defendant away from her house and that he had threatened to beat up anyone she was dating. Sandra also told police that defendant refused to acknowledge the divorce and was depressed. Based on this and additional information, the Vermont State Police coordinated their investigation with Pennsylvania State Police, and arrested defendant at his home in Johnstown on October 21, 1992.
After lengthy pretrial proceedings, a jury trial was held in October 1995. Defendant was convicted of the first-degree murder of John Kenworthy.
To the best of my knowledge, the defendant is still in prison, though his term has been reduced from life without parole to 35-life.
If you go to the CDC site, here and look at weekly data for the week ending October 3rd. Here is what you'll find: Average expected number of deaths: 53,138. Predicted (weighted) number of deaths: 57,067. The difference between these is 3,929. Even though this data is weighted and over a month old, you may find slightly different numbers because the CDC is constantly updating as information comes in.
If you divide the weekly deaths by 7 to get the average per day: This gives 561. But if you go to this site: You will see that the 7-day smoothed average deaths/day on October 3rd is 729 deaths/day. The difference is 168/day or 61,216/year.
Three hypotheses:
1. They are counting deaths from Covid which would have happened without Covid. So, somebody dies of cancer, but he is Covid positive, so they count it as a Covid death.
2. There are non-Covid deaths which are prevented by the steps we are taking to prevent the spread of Covid. What could they be? Of the top 10 causes of death in the US, only three would seem to have any relation to Covid or our steps to prevent it:
This month I ran 100.5 miles in 15:54:45 and last month, the exact same distance at 15:35:38 and I wondered if there was a quick way to inspect the monthly workouts to explain the difference.
Here is what I came up with: I normally run in the mid 9-minute per mile range, so add a point for any run at or above 9:45 and two points for any run above 10:30, but subtract 1 point for any run below 9:00.
In October, I score 4 points: 3 9:45 or more, 1 10:30 or more and one below 9:00. In September the score is an even 0. Four were above 9:45 and 4 were below 9:00.
Each point is worth 5 minutes.
Scenario: YouTube demonitizes a channel because they don't like the political position of the channel "owner"
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
OR
Under this Act, the Commission is empowered, among other things, to (a) prevent unfair methods of competition, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce; (b) seek monetary redress and other relief for conduct injurious to consumers; (c) prescribe trade regulation rules defining with specificity acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive, and establishing requirements designed to prevent such acts or practices; (d) conduct investigations relating to the organization, business, practices, and management of entities engaged in commerce; and (e) make reports and legislative recommendations to Congress.
I'm not in the mood for a lot of math, but I think there are only 12 combinations of these three words in which kid is always used twice and the other two words are used once. I don't really care about that since this is a linguistics post.
The arrangements can be categorized into a few different meanings:
1. An immature goat which is nice to children.
2. An immature goat which is friendly in a general way.
Goat kid, kid friendly 1
Kid goat, kid friendly 1
Goat kid, friendly kid 2
Kid goat, friendly kid 2
Friendly kid, kid goat 2
Friendly kid, goat kid 2
Kid friendly, kid goat 1
Kid friendly, goat kid 1
Kid, kid friendly goat 1
Kid, kid goat, friendly 1
Friendly goat kid, kid 1
Goat, friendly kid, kid --this one may be unintelligible even with helpful commas
1. The top image is a count of all deaths, the bottom is specific counts for Covid related deaths.
2. Please note the shape of the bottom curve and the right hand side of the top curve. They cover the same period of time. These curves look really similar to me, which makes me think they are both good data since they are using completely different data sources.
3. Since excess deaths are now normal, this crisis is over. I suspect it will take several more months before everyone starts acting like things are normal, but that is because of psychology, not data.
Remind me of which side is acting more like fascists?
Back when case rates were setting records, but death rates were flat, the news was wall to wall, "Case Rates Set New Records!"
Now that they've fallen for a month straight, radio silence. Their motto must be "All the Bad-News that Fits (our agenda)."
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