YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN STUPID - Bill O’Reilly

from realclearpolitics.com

You Have the Right to Remain Stupid

By Bill O'Reilly

The vicious contagion presents perhaps the most significant personal opportunity for change in our lifetimes. That’s because the bustle has broken down. The pursuit of money, sex, power, and other magnets are all on hold. We are now apart from the daily machine that can grind us into unthinking, callous people. At least most of us are.

So, how about some introspection? Some inward evaluation. An honest appraisal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe we start with the country and then we’ll get to what’s really important- our own selves - as the country singers might say.

An essential question for me is: how did this country get so hateful? If you are following the contagion news, you know the blame game has kicked in. It’s the “Trump virus”, according to a New York Times columnist. Another far left writer in that liberal journal (it no longer meets the standards of a newspaper) says the virus is enabled by ultra-religious Christians who “deny science.” Of course, she ties that into the climate change debate as well as President Trump.

On the right, some loons accuse China of weaponizing the contagion without a shred of evidence to back up the claim.

With so much craziness available on the net, often disseminated by corporate media, the divisive atmosphere has fueled a unique kind of American loathing. Many of us actively despise those with whom we disagree.

Thus, in our newfound downtime, we might think about whether we are a part of the loathing movement and if we are, whether that is enhancing our individual lives.

And then there is “what your country can do for you.” President Kennedy rejected that sentiment but today the concept is warmly embraced by millions of Americans who firmly believe in the Bernie Sanders doctrine: that the government should provide. No need for self-reliance, that’s for fools. A vast central power structure will dictate what Americans can and cannot have. We the people are not the deciders. Bernie and his comrades would be.

It is simply incredible to me, a son of the Cold War, that socialism is on the rise in America. Perhaps during the contagion we can think hard about our individual freedoms which are under assault from the virus. Do you like being told how to live and where you can go? How about you, Democratic Party, are you embracing the restrictions we are seeing? They are obviously necessary. But they are also a vivid message. This is what can happen all the time when big government totalitarian rule.

On the social front, are you a due process denier? Do you condemn neighbors based on gossip? Are you supportive of the trend that all allegations are convictions? When Brett Kavanaugh was almost destroyed, it was an accusation, not hard facts, that brought him to the brink. One brave woman, Senator Susan Collins, saved him. Hundreds of our elected officials embraced the noose.

Finally, what about you? Do you fear the virus? Why? Are you afraid to die? Do you fear giving the contagion to people you love? Are strangers part of the equation? Do you feel for the suffering and dying? Do you pray for them? Do you pray at all?

All throughout history the world has suffered as it is suffering now. Those who see the big picture understand that dreadful plagues, wars, natural disasters, and human atrocities are all part of earthly existence.

People who accept that and learn from the viral calamity, are likely to prosper in the aftermath.

People who see themselves as victims and who lament the loss of individual pursuits, will stay in place. And, in America, we still have that right - to remain selfish and even more harshly - to remain stupid.

Bill O'Reilly is a former Fox News Channel host. His website is billoreilly.com.

MEANINGLESS METRIC - Bloomberg News

from the Opinion page of Bloomberg News Service

Technology & Ideas

Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Is an ‘Almost Meaningless’ Metric

We need more complete, coordinated data to know when it's safe to reopen the U.S. economy.

By Faye Flam

March 28, 2020, 7:35 AM CDT.

Testing is only one way of gathering data.Photographer: Aaron Chown - PA Images/Getty Images

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It doesn’t matter that the United States surpassed China this week in reported Covid-19 cases because those numbers (83,507 and 81,782 respectively as of March 26) don’t tell us how many people actually became infected in either country. Nor do they tell us how fast the disease is spreading, since only a tiny portion of the population in the United States has been tested.

“The numbers are almost meaningless,” says Steve Goodman, a professor of epidemiology at Stanford University. There’s a huge reservoir of people who have mild cases, and would not likely seek testing, he says. The rate of increase in positive results reflect a mixed-up combination of increased testing rates and spread of the virus.

We will need more complete data, smarter data and more coordinated data to communicate something meaningful about the extent of Covid-19 in the United States, how many people are likely to die, which hospitals are likely to be swamped and whether drastic changes in the way Americans live will start to slow down the spread of the virus.

With a population of 1.5 billion people, China’s some 80,000 cases look like a rounding error, says Nigam Shah, an assistant professor of biomedical statistics at Stanford. And India’s claim of some 754 cases probably reflects a severe lack of tests — not that the disease there is still so rare. The positive tests say little about how many people are dying or will die, since most cases are mild.

What should we be watching instead? One possibility is hospitalizations. That idea was put forward by statisticians Jacob Steinhardt, an assistant professor from UC Berkeley, and Steve Yadlowsky, a graduate student at Stanford who specializes in analyzing health care data. They argue that rate of increase in hospitalizations could reflect the growth of the disease without being distorted by changes in the testing rate.

Measuring death rates can eventually track the speed with which Covid-19 is spreading — as deaths represent a fraction of cases. But there’s a lag of some three weeks between infection and death. Hospitalizations give an intermediate point, as Steinhardt and Yadlowsky explain: They estimate that it takes between 11 and 14 days for someone to get sick enough to show up at the hospital. Rates of increase in Covid-19 patients admitted to the ICU can provide additional useful data.

These numbers might not accurately reflect the growth of the disease, however, if the hospitals or their ICUs become overwhelmed, start turning people away or raise the threshold for how sick you have to be to be admitted.

But collecting this kind of data can help prevent that from happening, said Stanford’s Shah.

If we all behave responsibly, he says, then we can turn what would have been a hospital capacity problem into a logistics problem. Once you have a handle on the rate of new Covid-19 patients admitted to hospitals and ICUs, you can start to forecast how many more will arrive in coming days.

Stanford’s Goodman said that he’s confident scientists will eventually collect the data we need to understand this pandemic and how it’s playing out in the United States. “Right now we are floundering in a sea of ignorance about who is infected and the fate of people who are infected,” he says.

Though death rate figures of around 1% have been tossed around, Goodman says he’s skeptical that anyone knows the death rate of this disease since we don’t know the true rates of infection.

And we can’t identify the most vulnerable groups. “There’s this delusion being disseminated that it’s all about age,” he says. He thinks that since 95% of deaths to date in New York City were of people who had pre-existing conditions, this is the bigger risk factor. But since age is a risk factor for many of those conditions, the two are correlated.

He could figure it out if he could get data on pre-existing conditions broken down by age, but says the New York health department won’t release that data. It matters a lot, he says, since we’re shaping policies around who is most vulnerable. We should find out who they are. They should know who they are.

Some other useful data could easily be collected at testing sites. As doctors Farzad Mostashari and Ezekiel Emanuel pointed out last week in STATnews, health departments should tally not just positives but total tests, and record demographic and symptom information on all the test takers. Much of that isn’t collected or coordinated.

Random sampling would help too, agree both Shah and Goodman, to estimate the number of mild or asymptomatic cases and get at the true total. And then there’s the promise of widespread antibody testing, which could reveal how many people in a given sample had been infected in the past.

With attention to the right kinds of data, scientists can soon assess whether lockdowns and social distancing efforts are slowing the rate of spread in the United States. Any dent we’ve made in new infections should start to show up in data on hospital admissions in a week or two.

Trump promised Americans we could ease up on restrictions by Easter, while most scientists would like to wait until they can base such changes on evidence. Goodman says at this point, figuring out what to do next is like building an airplane in the air. In a later phase of the pandemic, we might be able to focus more on mass testing and quarantining people known to be sick or exposed. We probably can’t responsibly stop lockdowns by Easter, but we may know enough by then to start to think about the timing and nature of an exit strategy.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She has written for the Economist, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Psychology Today, Science and other publications. She has a degree in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology.

Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She has written for the Economist, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Psychology Today, Science and other publications. She has a degree in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology..
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SUPPOSE THEY SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT AND NOBODY CARED

Well, the anti-American Democratic Party with a handful of equally moronic Republicans have shut down the government in favor of DACA, the so-called Dreamers who are here illegally. The 44th President who was not a fan of the United States Constitution, did not like the messiness of passing actual laws. He enjoyed using his pen to sign executive orders. As part of a budget deal the Dumocrats insist on language that will finally legalize DACA (Deferred Acton for Childhood Arrivals). This is completely orchestrated, the Dumocrats just wanted to make the President and the Republican Congress look bad. Will it work? It might. The Dumocrats own the media. Surely the media is painting this government shutdown as some kind of disaster. It is not good that while the government shutdown is in effect, the military are not being paid. That is very bad and very evil. Why do the Congressmen and Senators get paid during this period? Aren't they non-essential? In fact, I can barely think of any group of people more non-essential than these clowns. The truth is, most Americans probably don't even know that we are currently in 'shutdown' mode and many more who do know, like me, probably don't care too much. I know that this shutdown is very thrilling to the anti-trumpers at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and The New York Times, but they may be miscalculating just how much real people, actual voters, real Americans care about this. I should amend my comments. I do care. And I place the blame squarely on the un-American, un-patriotic, US Constitution-hating Democrats that infest the Congress. There is a lot more swamp draining that needs to be done.

Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, January 20, 2018

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Hy-vee - Oatmeal - Apples & Cinnamon	660	138	9	18	750	36
	660	138	9	18	750	36
L U N C H
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich	700	55	31	17	286	31
	700	55	31	17	286	31
D I N N E R
Taco Bell, taco dinnerl	1,000	75	50	50	0	10
	1,000	75	50	50	0	10
S N A C K S
Met Rx -Chocolate Cookie Dough	400	58	6	31	167	28
	400	58	6	31	167	28
Totals	2,760	326	96	116	1,203	105
Your Daily Goal	3,324	415	110	167	2,300	124
Remaining	564	89	14	51	1,097	19
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,394 extra calories from exercise today

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POCAHONTAS

Hey, lefties...Would you like to know one of the many reasons that half of America admires Donald Trump? It is because he has the balls to call out frauds when he sees one. The (dis)Honorable Senator Elizabeth Warren who gamed the system to claim to be a Native American is a liar. She is a fraud. What she is not, is a Native American. I hate to be the one to break this news to her and to all her sycophants - she is caucasian.  There is no more effective way to call attention to this phony than to derisively call her Pocahontas. If the shoe (or moccasin) fits, wear it. 

My 10 mile hike started AFTER 8PM and ended around 10:30PM. The weather was remarkably warm, and I was out and about in just two layers of t-shirt.

Your Food Diary For:

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker - Instant Oatmeal - Apples & Cinammon	640	132	8	16	800	48
Super 8 Cinnamon Roll	310	48	15	4	550	25
	950	180	23	20	1,350	73
L U N C H
Good to go - Deli combo, 1 sandwich	440	64	10	24	0	0
	440	64	10	24	0	0
D I N N E R
Jimmy John's - #14 Bootlegger Club Sandwich	660	66	27	43	1,750	0
Sushi - Philly Roll	400	50	15	23	0	0
	1,060	116	42	66	1,750	0
S N A C K S
Chewy Oat & Honey Cranola Bar	200	38	4	4	110	14
Protein Plus Protein Bar - MET-Rx	400	37	13	41	123	1
	600	75	17	45	233	15
Totals	3,050	435	92	155	3,333	88
Your Daily Goal	3,485	435	116	175	2,300	130
Remaining	435	0	24	20	-1,033	42
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,555 extra calories from exercise today

If every day were like today...   You'd weigh 223.5 lbs in 5 weeks.