Archive for March, 2020

In the US it’s the “Perfect” time for the Corona/Wuhan Virus

Posted: March 12, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Leonard: Yeah, you can’t stay in your apartment for the rest of your life

Raj: Why not? With online shopping and overnight delivery, I can get anything I want. Look, I just ordered a case of Dinty Moore beef stew and two live lobsters on Amazon.

Leonard: Lobsters overnight?

Howard: Oh, you’re kidding. Let me see. Well, I’ll be. Look, you can throw in a couple steaks and have a surf and turf

Leonard: The surf and turf sounds good. See if they have corn on the cob.

Bernadette: Guys, we’re trying to get him out of here, not you in.

The Big Bang Theory The Monster Isolation 2013

And no I don’t mean in terms of the Democrats and their m-m-m-my Corona bit.

I mean in terms having a society that is in a position to cope with this situation while still functioning.

Consider the following. During the Spanish flu epidemic 100 years ago that killed thousands, watching a baseball game would have been taking your life in your hands.

Today not only can fans watch just about every game on TV but March Madness and the NBA & NHL playoffs (when they resume) are available both on TV and streaming, but unlike 20 years ago when you’d have to hit a bar to see it on a good high def screen is an affordable item.

Consider colleges, Many colleges are not holding classes because of the current virus situation, however with streaming and teleconferencing a professor is in a position to not only teach a class but interact with students in person or as a group so their physical presence is not vital.

20 or 30 years ago paying your taxes, or registering your car, or getting the water bill or electric bill paid meant standing in a long line. Today all of this can be done online with a few click and thanks to electronic transfer of funds, even those without the net can likely pay by phone.

Furthermore many of the jobs involved here are jobs that can be done remotely. In 2004 when I 1st started working remotely it was a novel thing. Today tens of millions in the US have that ability to do useful work without leaving the home.

Even industries that are traditionally not done remotely can adapt. With a smart phone, online or remote payment and a few people ready to drive, a local supermarket can institute a delivery system fairly quickly, thanks to doordash your local restaurant can get your favorite dish to your home without a lot of fuss. Cripes even McDonald & Wendy’s delivers these days

And I haven’t even mentioned Amazon or Netflix or facebook which means that movies, TV shows, books and social and personal interaction is an easy thing to achieve and just about any product and service we need can be delivered to our door with minimal contact.

And of course there is gaming. Online gaming is a staple of entertainment so you can have a blast with friends or even alone and not even leave the house (might I suggest Dynasty Baseball as I’m about to start a new league).

Cripes even vice is safer (although not for the soul) as dancing around a pole in front of a bunch of drunk men in a club can be replaced by a web cam where you don’t have to have a bouncer ready to act for your safety.

In short even if government finds it necessary to limit contact in public spaces and people retreat to their homes to isolate themselves during this crisis we as a society have reached a point where such isolation, while an inconvenience will not be crippling.

Of course this is not true for everyone. Mom and pop stores will suffer, buffet restaurants will suffer (although they can sell and deliver by the pound) and medical facilities and jobs that require regular physical contact with others will still be communities at risk, not to mention the warehouse workers who will need to deal with Christmas like volume when this becomes the norm.

However we are damn lucky that this virus hit in 2020 and not a Century or even a decade earlier

Two Brady Possibilities one more Time

Posted: March 11, 2020 by datechguy in nfl, Sports
Tags:

The official start to the free agent season in the NFL is my wife’s birthday and it can’t come soon enough for me because the All Brady all the time on Boston Sports talk radio has reach Bloomberg Ad level status

This comes at a time when the Bruins are ruling the NHL the Celtics have taken a sad (but newsworthy turn) and the Red Sox rotation has reached a point where the best way to describe this season’s potential is to paraphrase Sgt Mulcahy from the Classic John Wayne movie Ft. Apachie when he was asked to judge some rotgut wiskey that was being smuggled to the Indians. Well sir, it’s better than no baseball at all.

All these developments are newsworthy and talk worthy but it’s Brady Brady Brady to the point where one thinks this is his way to soften the blow when he leaves since we’ll all be saying thank God THAT’S over.

But for those of you still wondering on this subject let’s make a few points

  1. While everybody has been saying how Brady wants to play three more years people are forgetting that Bill Belichick also doesn’t have a lot of years left coaching presuming that he was serious about not wanting to coach deep into his 70’s. Brady might have three seasons left in him but Bill likely has no more than five and may only need four to pass Don Shula on the all time list
  2. Belichick knows the road to the Superbowl leads through Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes. No matter how you crunch the numbers there is no available Quarterback more likely to beat Patrick Mahomes in a playoff game in KC than the one guy who did it just two years ago: Tom Brady
  3. Tom Brady is very rich, his wife is very rich and he will remain very rich if it retired tomorrow. The idea that 3-5 million is going to make a huge difference in what he decides to do at this point is simply silly.
  4. Tom Brady’s wife has been wanting him to retire for years. (I suspect his absence from non-mandatory sessions was part of a compromise with her to keep playing.) He is not going to go anywhere that doesn’t have an airtight offensive line.
  5. Please stop pretending it’s a crisis because Brady hasn’t signed before Free Agency. It is seven days to free agency, Tom Brady has never been a free agent. After waiting all this time do you really think he’s going to wait till one or two days before free agency beings and THEN sign with the Pats. That’s simply absurd. He is going to see what the offers are 1st.
  6. Tom Brady not only has nothing to prove, but is apparently STILL pissed off at being passed up till the 6th round by every team out there. I would not be surprised if he pulled a Rocky Marciano on the guys who offered him back money to come back and let those teams offer him big bucks and then sign with the Pats saying: “Hey if you really wanted me you should have drafted me when you had the chance”.
  7. There is only one wildcard in this entire process. Does Brady want to challenge himself by trying to win a Superbowl elsewhere?

All these things are possibilities, but you know what the most important truth is? Just this:

We don’t know what’s going to happen and we won’t know until it happens.

So let’s all chill.

Biden Punches Down — Again

Posted: March 10, 2020 by julietteochieng in elections, elections, News/opinion, oddities, politics, primaries
Tags: , , , ,

by baldilocks

Just a reminder: I don’t give a bleep about manners.

However, I’m usually cordial because that’s my personality and because cordiality is more effective for communication most of the time.

But when those other times happen, I don’t hesitate to engage — with glee even and almost never with anger. (On my own blog, I’ll use the occasional obscenity, but Peter frowns upon unedited bleepers and this is his living room, not mine.)

So, when 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden told a Michigan autoworker that he was “full of sh*t” or that he was a “horse’s a**,” it didn’t offend my sensibilities in the least; I’m not one of these “thou shalt not be rude” Christians. My Lord and Savior was rude a few times when He was down here and He even hurled a epithet or two …

… but not at those who would presume to follow Him.

While I was pointing and laughing at Biden today, one of my Twitter followers thought I was condemning him for “bad words.” Leaving aside that I don’t have the power or authority to condemn anyone in any manner, if I were the Big Bad, I’d condemn Biden for being aggressive with someone who has much less power and authority that he does; for “punching down” — definition #5. (For the record, Biden was pretending to be a gun-rights champion and got all offended when the autoworker wasn’t buying it.)

There’s a lot of speculation that Biden is showing symptoms of dementia. Maybe, but who could tell? Biden has long had only a nodding acquaintance with the truth and has more than once been aggressive and insulting toward ordinary people among his own constituency who critically question him.

It’s one thing to insult your political opponent — your equal — but it’s a whole other thing to insult those you want to lead.

Will Biden steal the nomination from beat Bernie? That seems to be the direction in which we’re heading. Assuming that happens, we can look forward to some horizontal punching between the former vice president and President Trump. Biden’s cognitive state may be in question, but even if he’s merely the same old Biden who just pulls stuff out of his backside, the president is bound to make him angry — on purpose no doubt.

Lying dog-faced pony soldiers should go long on popcorn, as should everyone else.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Obama’s failures during the 2009 pandemic

Posted: March 10, 2020 by chrisharper in media, Uncomfortable Truths

 By Christopher Harper

Just after announcing a national emergency to combat the N1H1 H1N1 virus in 2009, President Obama went out for a round of golf. Later, he appointed Elmo, the Sesame Street character, as the national spokesperson on how to combat the virus. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103135.html

All told, nearly 13,000 died from the virus. But President Obama got nary a mention of criticism during the year-long battle against the virus.

Contrast the media coverage of the 2009 outbreak with the press attacks on President Trump. DaTimes went so far as to call COVID-19 “the Trumpvirus.” See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html

After looking through the archives of DaTimes and DaPost, I found almost no serious analysis of what Obama did wrong in 2009.

In April 2009, the virus was a combination of bird, swine, and human flu viruses further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, leading to the term “swine flu.”

The Centers for Disease Control estimated the following illness and death rates from April 2009 to April 2010:

–CDC estimated that about 61 million people were infected.
–About 274,000 people ended up in the hospital.
–About 13,000 people died, mainly people over 65.

The leading suggestions from the Obama administration at the outset of the pandemic included washing hands and sneezing into one’s arm. 

An internal report, which was completed six months after the outbreak of the virus, suggested that the president appoint one official to coordinate the efforts. See https://www.medicalcountermeasures.gov/BARDA/documents/2009%20pcast-h1n1.pdf

Trump made his vice president the coordinator almost immediately, although he faced widespread criticism for the choice.

As the crisis worsened, Obama and his team ramped up the production of a vaccine. By October, an estimated 120 million doses were supposed to be available. Only 15 million hit hospitals, with people waiting in long lines to get the vaccine.

In one of the rare criticisms of the Obama effort, DaPost wrote: “The federal government’s unprecedented campaign to protect the nation against the swine flu pandemic has gotten off to a sputtering start, frustrating parents, pregnant women, and others anxious to get immunized against the new virus.” See https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204707.html

Compare the stumbling performance of the Obama team to the 2009 crisis with that of the Trump administration. Maybe the media should do the same, but that’s not going to happen because today’s journalists don’t let the facts stand in the way of a good story. 

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