Alternate McSweeny's Articles, Part 5

 

I AM A dissapointed BIDEN VOTER WHO WAS TOLD by the legacy media that HE’d never do all the things he promised he'd do and here he is on day 1 keeping his promises!

WTF, MSM?

by CHANDLER DEAN

1619 And The Arrow of Time

 The idea behind the 1619 Project, is that the "real" founding of the United States was in 1619, when the first slave was brought here.

The problem is that the United States didn't exist until 1776.  We were part of the British Empire and did not rule our own affairs.  Whatever happened 157 years before our founding, has no bearing on what we created in 1776.

But, what if 1776 was itself about slavery?  Like, if the British were about to outlaw it and so we were motivated to be independent because of this, undesirable change.  The British outlawed slavery in 1833.

So we founded a new nation to protect slavery, 57 years before our masters outlawed it?  That is some real thinking ahead, or the 1619 Project is complete bullshit.

L'enfer, c'est les autres

 Sartre:  Hell is other people.

Americans:  Hell is other Americans.

Most Americans believe the biggest threat to America's way of life is other people in the country and domestic enemies

Inauguration Day Markers:

As of today, Worldometer has US Covid deaths at 415,038 and the Bloomberg vaccine tracker says that 35,990,150 vaccine doses have been distributed to the states.

Let's check back every so often and see how it goes from here.

The 7-day average as of the 20th is 912k and the 20th itself had 1.6 million administered.

UPDATE June 2nd

1.5 Million doses administered June  1st

610,438 Deaths

Alternative McSweeny's Titles, part 4

 

A CONSERVATIVE’S GUIDE TO packing for your trip 

to the gulag

by SARAH HUTTO

Piano Sheet Music

I never really learned to play the piano, but I could pick-out a tune if I had music and piano available.  What I just realized, and maybe will try, should I ever have music and a piano, is to turn the sheet music on its side.

The problem with sheet music is that higher and lower notes are arranged along a vertical line, but the keyboard runs horizontally left to right. It seems as if it would be easier if what you saw mapped to the finger positions. You'd have to read the music top to bottom instead of left to right, but I don't think that's a challenge.

An additional advantage would be that the bass cleft would be on the left and the treble on the right, just like the hands which play them.

I Plan To Cut President Biden Some Slack

 No. Not for when he insinuated that Mitt Romney would re-institute slavery.  And also not for perpetuating the lie that Trump praised white supremacists. 

What I will cut him some slack for is the election fraud which may have gained him the presidency.  I doubt Biden could engineer his way out of a paper sack, let alone engineer voter fraud in half a dozen states.

What Biden ought to do, especially since he is very unlikely to run for re-election anyway, is propose a bipartisan commission to investigate the safeguards which protect the integrity of elections.  He would gain a lot of goodwill across the isle by saying:  

I don't think fraud determined this election, but close to half the people have doubts about this.  We need to audit and then work to make a system which inspires confidence that the outcome is legitimate and encourages every eligible voter to exercise their right to vote.

I doubt he'll do this, but I am putting down a marker:  If he does this, it would be praiseworthy. 

Lies, All Lies!

 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.

Bloomberg:

Jurisdiction	Doses distributed	Doses administered	% shots used

Massachusetts

669,325

257,175

38.4

Update: According to mass.gov/covid, people over 75 or with 2 comorbidities will have no priority until the start of Feb.

Alternate McSweeny's Titles part 3

 

Actual MLK QUOTES

which will now

get you branded

 A RACIST

by RYAN WEBER

Alternate McSweenys Titles Part 2

 

Please stop pointing out 

that we stole the 

election

 as it WILL ONLY 

FURTHER DIVIDE OUR NATION

by MIKE LANGLEY

Forget The Election

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.

Why Was The Capitol Breached But Not The White House?

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.

The Logic of Path-Dependence

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.

Alternate McSweeny's Titles

 

DOMESTIC TERRORISTS burned down cities all over the country all summer long AND OUR REPUBLIC IS IN TATTERS, BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT BECAUSE WE GOT a geriatric white man elected president

8 Years of Running Data

Each year from 2012-2015 I made posts at the end of the year for my running statistics, but I haven't done it again till this year. 

I think the reason has been the fact of having an Achilles tendon issue, getting old and becoming steadily slower. But one must face facts, so here is the rest of the story--freshly number crunched: 

The good years, when I could be very pleased with myself: 

Year Miles Pace 

2012 1,502.13 7:57 

2013 1,571.55 7:58 

2014 1582 1/2 7:55 

2015 1573.61 7:57 

The wheels are coming-off years: 

2016  1451.9   0:08:04 

Still pretty respectable, but not making 1,500 and over 8:00 for the first time... 

2017  1077.38   0:08:23 

Now, way below 1,500 and still slower: I think I was experimenting with fewer, more intense runs... 

2018  866.36   0:09:09 

Okay, low miles is not, I repeat, not working... 

2019  1247.54   0:09:27 

Okay, still slower, but a big increase in miles for the first time. This was the era of my monthly goal of 100 miles coming into effect. I had found that I felt less crippled with injury if I put in a bit more miles. 

2020  1227.54   0:09:14 

This feels like progress: I kept up more-or-less the same miles but did a better pace than the year before, for the first time--probably the first time since the first couple of years I've run. I took up running in 2002 and I think I hit a plateau around 2003 or 2004.

Two Places I've lived (of many) and one with the same name, but in a different country.

It is actually really common, when you live in New England, for there to be a cognate town there for each one here.

Chelmsford, MA

Chelmsford, UK

Colchester, VT

There is one in the UK and other places.  You can try your own city, or any city, here:

 

Two Mistakes People Are Making Right Now.

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. 

 

Thanks Internet, I was Wondering About That

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.

 

Why Excess Deaths and Covid Deaths Don't match

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:

• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127:  There are certainly enough here to see some impact from the reduction in driving, which is a major component of unintentional injuries.  But people have more time at home and are likely injuring themselves falling off of ladders and the like.
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 59,120: This should be going down.  If our efforts to control Covid are at all useful, they should also reduce the spread of other lung-related diseases.
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344:  If anything, one would expect that the stress associated with this pandemic would cause more, not less self harm.

3.  A combination of 1 and 2.

An Easy Heuristic to Explain Month-To-Month running differences

 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.