... you can talk all night.
That's in our garden. But I do have a sunrise photograph too. Overcast. A bit dim...
But still nice to be out and running at 6 in the morning. The photo was taken at 6:08.
April 23, 2020
At the Fritillaria Café...
... you can talk all night.
That's in our garden. But I do have a sunrise photograph too. Overcast. A bit dim...
But still nice to be out and running at 6 in the morning. The photo was taken at 6:08.
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341 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 341 of 341"And I was not comparing the two scenarios, you imbecile, I was drawing a comparison."
Explain.
What We Should All Be Doing Right Now
A story about Deanna Dunn Corleone from the Washington Post --
Cristina Cuomo, wife to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and sister-in-law to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, recently revealed she bathed in Clorox bleach while recovering from the coronavirus, along with using multiple other holistic methods.
Pants,
I have been pleasantly surprised that some of my friends here in Cali--die-hard anti-Trumpers and the sort of tender-hearted softies I would think would Panic! on behalf of everyone else--have been appropriately skeptical. While they can't credit the president with doing anything right, they at least are not Danger is Everywhere dummies.
stephen cooper: "Drago --- you are lying, or you are saying something that is not true without knowing it."
Try again moron.
The government shutdown in 2018 (and into 2019) lasted roughly 4 and half weeks and over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Not a single govt employee was in danger of losing their jobs.
I know exactly what my government employee pals were doing, and I don't blame them a bit.
J Farmer,
Very cute. She is pretty. And funny.
Birkel --- people who hate government workers rejoiced when government workers went without a paycheck. I commented here, at the time, that many of those government workers were the only people in large families who had a paycheck, and that this caused real suffering when the paychecks ran out.
Ignorant people mocked me and said all government workers have it easy, which was such an obvious lie that I felt sad to even have to respond to it.
In the present, much more serious case - a thousand times more serious --- there are people with jobs (media types, teleworkers, and yes, government workers) who are mocking the people who protest in support of opening the economy, claiming that they are not suffering enough to have a right to complain.
The foolish people who mock the people who protest against the government closing of small businesses are the same sort of people I argued with for mocking that portion of government workers who were the only ones getting a paycheck in large families. I argued with people who simply did not care about the suffering of others. Now, when the suffering is a thousand times greater, they ought to understand.
Idiots mocked me because I cared, idiots said that government workers were all enjoying their time off, and idiots laughed at the suffering of people who could not pay their parents' mortgage, who could not pay for their children's needs, for those few weeks . I recognize it was just a few weeks, and that what we are facing now will be months, and will involve suicides, bankrupcies, and failed businesses at a scale probably a hundred thousand times the suffering from the government shutdown. Like I said,probably a hundred thousand times worse. But if you were a bully then, and laughed at those who were suffering, this is a good time to realize you were wrong. It is not the scale that matters, it is the suffering of the individual worker. And his family, and the people that rely on him.
I do not like bullies, and I do not think that any of us have a right to avoid understanding the world.
And I was not comparing the two scenarios, you imbecile, I was drawing a comparison.
@stephen cooper, he’s not an imbecile and your choice of words is self-contradictory. Go back to thumping your Bible.
Drago --- you may be the stubbornest person I have ever met.
You made no attempt to understand what I was saying, did you, you little man with so many government employee friends?
@Birkel:
The amendments have very little to do with the problems I would describe. The Court decided the government could regulate all commerce, effectively. The Court established rights that do not exist. That is harder to undo than amendments.
True, the commerce clause is sufficiently vague it invites broad interpretation. For my money, though, it doesn't get much worse than the 14th Amendment.
stephen cooper: "Idiots mocked me because I cared,"
And because you are too diligent. And too hard working. And too passionate. And too willing to work with others cooperatively to achieve win-win results.
Yeah, I think I've seen that on a few resume submittals I've reviewed.
Big Mike - go back to where you came from, nobody asked you .
Drago --- you may be the stubbornest person I have ever met.
I object!
Drago and Big Mike ---- feel free to have the last word.
Your pithy parting comments are pure gamma.
stephen cooper: "Drago --- you may be the stubbornest person I have ever met."
We've never met.
And after 2 posts of back and forth I guess I'd have to add that, in your mind, you are the most astonishing assessors of human beings ever.
Congratulations.
I am so tired of Mel Kiper.
stephen cooper,
I was not on the blog then, so I cannot speak to what you aver.
However, I understood that no federal employees actually went without pay at all--even for a few weeks.
What bothers me about those shutdowns is that politics gets played, so that "non-essential" federal employees are the ones that will cause the most pain to the public and tug at our heartstrings.
Of course, it is evil to rejoice at another's suffering, no matter who it is who suffers. That is because rejoicing at suffering is a disease of the soul--it has nothing to do with the object of our derision. To find pleasure in another's pain is sadism.
Not that I am pure as the driven snow. Schadenfreude plagues us all.
Farmer: "I object!"
I know!
And you are in this very thread.
Francisco D: "I am so tired of Mel Kiper."
He didn't even have Todd to kick around!
I want government workers laid off in great numbers at all levels of government.
That's the fastest way to get people who cannot work from home back to work.
Also, fuck government workers who didn't plan better.
They probably just weren't viable workers.
I believe I am as stubborn as any here.
I admit some of you are reasonably stubborn.
I am unreasonably stubborn.
I just hope the bat defamation league is still funded and on the case.
There was a kerfuffle over some bat coins etc.
@stephen cooper, responding to your comment at 11:17, do you think that if, just perhaps, the average government worker treated the American citizens with whom they come in contact with some moderate level of respect, that ordinary American citizens might be more sympathetic towards them? In my experience the only agency that gets this right is Social Security. YMMV
Whats become clear is the commerce clause has been the means of involving the govt in everything, because everything potentially involves commerce that was effectively the end of a self governing republic. And budget discipline.
Whenever republicans have tried to exercise their legitimate authority over the power of the purpose, the dems have used the plight of govt workers as cudgel hence entitlements in 95, obamacare in 2013, wall funding in 2018, heads they win tails you lose. Thats just a fact.
Never underestimate the power of modern medicine! It seems that overnight, 201 people in PA who were supposed to be victims of the Chinese Wuhan Virus suddenly came back to life!
https://thefranklincountyjournal.com/2020/04/23/caught-in-a-lie-wolf-administration-scrambles-to-cover-its-tracks-on-false-covid19-death-figures/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
******************
Achilles, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
I believe I am as stubborn as any here.
I admit some of you are reasonably stubborn.
I am unreasonably stubborn.
Could be a photo finish between the two of us. We've had some monumentally stupid back-and-forths before.
The first part of that comment was a quote from the link.
Sorry I missed the quote marks.
And Pennsylvania was lying about Winnie Xi Flu death numbers.
201 lies in one state.
They're the fools who got caught.
I disagree in part.
Your contributions were stupid.
Anne-I-Am ----- the person I was arguing with then is not arguing with me tonight.
You are misinformed about what happens during a government shutdown.
Such an event is good news to most government employees, as they expect to eventually get paid.
The ones who live paycheck to paycheck get by, but the point I was making, and a point the rich Boomers on Althouse comment sections generally (not always) failed to understand was that many poor people, including people with government jobs, who live paycheck to paycheck are helping out people even poorer than themselves.
As you can see from the responses I got, the simple point that I was standing up for the people who relied on government workers was missed. And again and again I was mocked. By people who did not even understand what I was saying, and who did not try.
There are many people on these comment threads who are bitter old Boomers, who log in every once in a while to say the most hurtful things they can.
Now, when there is about 100 thousand times as much economic pain as there was back during the government shutdown, I reflected on the fact that everybody's suffering matters.
I was mocked again, because apparently there are people who think I deserve to be mocked for noticing the suffering of people in an event that the mockers think, in their ignorance, involved no suffering.
Anne, it is no small thing to be kind to a creature who never had a friend in this world. And while I am far from the kindest person, I at least try and notice when others are suffering, and I try not to mock. People who are cold-hearted should take advantage of these difficult times to learn to be a little less cruel and selfish and willfully ignorant about the suffering of others.
Where the hell is Achilles to take his victory lap?
Now some sees nothing wrong with this, because we were never a republic in the first place or something. There is no such thing as limited federal authority over non governmental function.
To have the power to shut down effectively freedon of association of religion of speech is a very dangerous thing, specially when we dont know what comes next.
I disagree in part.
Your contributions were stupid.
I beg to differ.
Where the hell is Achilles to take his victory lap?
Probably off somewhere telling someone they're wrong.
"Also, fuck government workers who didn't plan better."
Waiting for the day when government is a "marginal business."
In the short run: no pension bailouts.
Smug,
Achilles has the advantage of being correct in his pronouncements.
You should try it some time; it's exhilarating.
Big Mike - Social Security people are great, Board of Veterans Appeal people are great, doctors at VA are not so great but the nurses are great.
IMHO.
Sebastian,
Did you see the article about Pennsylvania Democratics cooking the Winnie Xi Flu death books?
stephen cooper: "Such an event is good news to most government employees, as they expect to eventually get paid.
The ones who live paycheck to paycheck get by,"
Which was precisely the point I made....when you called me a liar or mistaken.
Make up your mind laddie. Make up your mind.
I do not want my comments to be a theme tonight.
if you want to discuss something, discuss this:
BIrkel has been totally right on the stay at home orders.
@narciso:
To have the power to shut down effectively freedon of association of religion of speech is a very dangerous thing, specially when we dont know what comes next.
Prior to the Civil War amendments, the Bill of Rights did not have apply to the states, and under the state's "police power," they had very broad authority to do all sorts of things that modern Americans would consider "unconstitutional." States could pretty much do whatever they wanted granted it was not a power delegated to the federal government.
In fact, nearly all of the "commerce clause" cases at the US Supreme Court were in regards to state laws and whether they unconstitutional usurped the federal government's power to regulate commerce.
Drago,
Just wait for the mass deletions.
This has been a teribly short sided plan,,because like ice 9 this flatline eventually affects everything hospital revenue streamd pensions the free flow of staples at reasonable price.
BIrkel has been totally right on the stay at home orders.
No more Covid-19 talk tonight!
stephen cooper: "As you can see from the responses I got, the simple point that I was standing up for the people who relied on government workers was missed. And again and again I was mocked."
It was almost as if you were being forced to carry a cross of the weight of all the govt workers dreams and aspirations on your shoulders.
Note: I'm not comparing situations, I'm simply making a comparison.
We are talking extraordinary exercise of govt authority, usurpation of negative liberties based on computer models shirley.
J Farmer,
But the 14th was the states agreeing to constrain themselves by proper Constitutional methods. There seems to me no procedural problem.
The Court deciding without the democratic process is substantively different.
Drago - the ones who live paycheck to paycheck got by
FOR THEMSELVES BUT MOST OF THEM WERE SUPPORTING THEIR NO ACCOUNT OR POOR RELATIVES
who did not get by, or who were worried at the time they would not get by
(and I am not a laddie, my grandparents were middle-aged before the phony queen down south in London, Victoria they called her, had celebrated her jubilee)
Why couldn’t they have called it SARS-2, since it’s the SARS-Co(rona)V(irus)-2? COVID-19 may be the worst bureaucratic initialism ever used for a viral pandemic.
I know the constitution is more than a hindred years old, yes the 1923 hyperinflarin like similar examples in 70s argentina 90s zimbabwe were not fatal in of themselves
Equating "commerce" with religion and speech?
Smug,
Achilles has the advantage of being correct in his pronouncements.
You should try it some time; it's exhilarating.
Aww, now that would really hurt if all the evidence didn't point to exactly the opposite direction.
Because that would have revealed the fact the sars 1.0 was screwed up as well
Protect guvmint workers from temp. dislocation because their freeloading relatives expect it.
You can't trust v1.0. Always a patch.
narciso,
None of the deep recessions between 1868 and 1929 were destructive. Certainly they punished some firms and some people. But the country was relatively quick to reverse the various downturns and soar to new heights.
All that changed with the expansion of government intrusion into more arenas.
But I know of very few studies that compare the structural changes of the government and the economy. I have seen a couple from Friedman who was a bit of an historian. But he didn't really address government overreach, per se.
But the 14th was the states agreeing to constrain themselves by proper Constitutional methods. There seems to me no procedural problem.
Southern states' ratification was forced before they would be permitted Congressional representation.
Also, an inherent problem with Constitutionalism is interpretation. For searches and seizures, for example, what is "unreasonable." The 14th demands that states " \make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"
That's practically a Rorschach.
care about everyone who suffers
IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND, Walter?
and who of us in this world is not sort of a free-loader except the saints.
And I have read some who liked the discipline of the gold standard for reversing runaway deficits as part of an historical analysis.
But they lack something I crave, perhaps because they are written by academicians.
Well 1873 triggered the conditiond for the end of reconstruction and much of the gilded age 1893 probably had similar impact on plessy vs ferguson came to be
But govt intervention in the economy has made depression deeper and recessions sharoer
J. Farmer said... No more Covid-19 talk tonight!
It was the first round of the quarantined NFL Draft tonight.
Not the usual overproduced extravaganza - much better.
Most NFL GMs had their obviously bored kids sitting with them on camera. Whose marketing idea was that?
Lose a war and you have to make concessions?
That must have been a first.
Some new sciency stuff
Researchers clone two human blocking monoclonal antibodies using #SARSCoV2 specific memory B cells isolated from patients with #COVID19 that bind and neutralize activity of virus; demonstrating the basis for antibody drugs as potential therapeutics.
Ruh roh...CAPS!
narciso,
True. And we agree completely. I just think the research is lacking. Friedman (and others) demonstrated that FDR deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. But I mean a comprehensive study of how consolidation of governmental power has made the system more fragile.
I don't believe I have seen that.
@Birkel, my understanding is that the commerce clause was also the states agreeing to yield previously possessed power. The trouble with both the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment is vague text, which invites courts to do as they please. And I would say the court-made law under the 14th as a whole strays even further from original meaning than that under commerce.
Nixon really bolloxed things up in 71, his alternatives werent great but getting off the gold standard and wage and price controls that would spike one removef.
Illuminating bromides will rinse/repeat:
Governor Tony Evers
@GovEvers
·
12h
Folks, this isn’t like flipping a switch. We need to continue to protect our healthcare system from being overwhelmed and build up the tools to manage this virus, so we can turn the dial and reopen our economy.
“The Ft. Detrick tests showed that the half-life of the virus after exposure to summer-like sunlight is about two minutes, both on surfaces and in the air.”
Maybe they can find a way of injecting UV light inside the body, or may some disinfectant! Think? Trump sure sounded excited about it today.”
I’m sorry Inga, but this is the stupidest comment I have read on this blog.
Someday Evers will address healthcare furloughs vs call for volunteers.
A Fate Worse Than Death For TDS'ers
They really should have taken it all the way with T'Pol and Trip.
“Maybe they can find a way of injecting UV light inside the body, or may some disinfectant! Think? Trump sure sounded excited about it today.”
I’m sorry Inga, but this is the stupidest comment I have read on this blog.”
I’m sorry, but that came from your President, not me.
User Clip: Trump asks if UV light and disinfectant can be injected into the body.
Probably the source of the recent UV buzz...Google found it right away:
Columbia [University] News
Could a New Ultraviolet Technology Fight the Spread of Coronavirus?
April 21, 2020
A technique that zaps airborne viruses with a narrow-wavelength band of UV light shows promise for curtailing the person-to-person spread of COVID-19 in indoor public places.
The technology, developed by Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, uses lamps that emit continuous, low doses of a ***particular wavelength*** of ultraviolent light, known as far-UVC, which can kill viruses and bacteria without harming human skin, eyes and other tissues, as is the problem with conventional UV light.
“Far-UVC light has the potential to be a ‘game changer,’” said David Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics and director of the center. “It can be safely used in occupied public spaces, and it kills pathogens in the air before we can breathe them in.”
The research team’s experiments have shown far-UVC effective in eradicating two types of airborne seasonal coronaviruses (the ones that cause coughs and colds). The researchers are now testing the light against the SARS-CoV-2 virus at Columbia in a biosafety laboratory, with encouraging results, Brenner said.
The team previously found the method effective in inactivating the airborne H1N1 influenza virus, as well as drug-resistant bacteria. And multiple, long-term studies on animals and humans have confirmed that exposure to far-UVC does not cause damage to the skin or eyes.
"Our system is a low-cost, safe solution to eradicating airborne viruses minutes after they've been breathed, coughed or sneezed into the air."
If widely used in occupied public places, far-UVC technology has the potential to provide a powerful check on future epidemics and pandemics, Brenner said. He added that even when researchers develop a vaccine against the virus that causes COVID, it will not protect against the next novel virus.
“Our system is a low-cost, safe solution to eradicating airborne viruses minutes after they've been breathed, coughed or sneezed into the air,” Brenner said. “Not only does it have the potential to prevent the global spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, but also future novel viruses, as well as more familiar viruses like influenza and measles.”
Brenner envisions the use of safe overhead far-UVC lamps in a wide range of indoor public spaces. The technology, which can be easily retrofitted into existing light fixtures, he said, could be deployed in hospitals and doctors’ offices as well as schools, shelters, airports, airplanes and other transportation hubs.
Scientists have known for decades that broad-spectrum, germicidal UV light has the capacity to kill microbes. Hospitals and laboratories often use UV light to sterilize tools and other equipment. But conventional ultraviolet light is highly penetrating and can cause skin cancer and eye problems.
In contrast, far-UVC, which has a very short wavelength, cannot reach or damage living human cells. But the narrow band wavelength can still penetrate and kill very small viruses and bacteria floating in the air or on surfaces.
Far-UVC lamps are now in production by several companies, although ramping up to large-scale production, as well as approval by the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, will take several months. At between $500 and $1000 per lamp, the lamps are relatively inexpensive, and once they are mass produced the prices would likely fall, Brenner said.
“Far-UVC takes a fundamentally different tactic in the war against COVID-19,” Brenner said. “Most approaches focus on fighting the virus once it has gotten into the body. Far-UVC is one of the very few approaches that has the potential to prevent the spread of viruses before they enter the body.”
https://news.columbia.edu/ultraviolet-technology-virus-covid-19-UV-light
I'm not stubborn. Passion intensity is not my thing. I'm rather of the the opinion that being wishy-washy is a virtue. Hubris is not something that drives the wishy-washy to destruction.....I've been wrong about any number of things. I thought Rumsfeld gave good pressers and easily refuted the inane questions of the reporters. I agreed with Cheney when he said the Iraqis would greet us as liberators. Who knew that Saddam Hussein was about the best that a country like Iraq could produce in terms of leaders?.....I used to think that The Doors were more talented than The Beach Boys. In the fullness of time, I have come to realize the error that youthful judgment.....If I was wrong then, there's a good chance I'm wrong now. I don't argue any of my positions with particular vehemence or conviction.
In Inga’s world if a treatment is not universally applicable in all cases it must be rejected in all cases. I don’t give a damn what Trump said or did not say, it’s good news that the virus half life is low under certain conditions that many people will be exposed to.
If you hate Trump then call him stupid, don’t make foolish statements about conditions that will improve people’s chances of being safe from infection.
I just did a google image search "PEANUTS WISHY WASHY".
Forcing nursing homes to take coronavirus patients
The only thing I learned in grad school about psychology is that it is a pretty unserious discipline, and I was in one of the more rigorous programs: neuropsychology. Human behavior is simply a mindbogglingly complex phenomenon, and our tools for analyzing it are extremely limited.
And since psychology is the kind of the social sciences, it means that the entire category is unserious. At the bottom of the pile is sociology, but between psychology and sociology is economics.
It amazes me the way economics, with its complicated models, seemingly-mathematical orientation, and use of terms like "law" and "theory," has convinced people that it should be taken seriously. Economists tend to filter into various schools of thought not on the basis of dispassionate, empirical weighing of the evidence but rather on the basis of their moral worldview. They cannot make reliable predictions. Their models require a huge number of assumptions. Like the old joke about quantum mechanics, anyone who says they understand macroeconomics doesn't understand macroeconomics.
Nay!
Nay, I say!
I'm reaching for a grand unified theory to explain why artists and intellectuals are so stupid. I submit this as one part of the problem: They think that the ways in which they are smart or artistic are the only proper ways of being smart and artistic. Take the example of Woodrow Wilson. I think most reasonable people are now aware that he was a world-historical fuck up who is directly responsible for most of the twentieth century's problems, including but not limited to Hitler and the Spanish Flu. In his era, Wilson had the unwavering respect and admiration of the pundits. Warren Harding was the one they mocked and distrusted. I don't know that much about Harding, but a superficial comparison of their records shows that Harding was the more successful President....I suppose Harding wasn't as scholarly or eloquent as Wilson, but, for sure, he had a better business model. That's the advantage of having a better business model. You don't have to be smart. You just have to be right about your business model.
What about this possible answer? Maybe this will help.
Nay!
Nay, I say!
What about that possible answer? Maybe that will help.
Nay!
Nay, I say!
Why don't we look into such and such.
(Dripping with disgust) How can you suggest that?? Nay!
Nay, I say!
What about so and so? That could help.
You stupid, stupid, stupid evil monster. Nay!
Nay, I say!
We can carry this example further back in history. King George III was stupid, bigoted and occasionally crazy. His continental opponent for a good part of his reign was Napoleon. Napoleon on just about every dimension was a more forceful, effective and intelligent leader than George III. The pundits of the time--Kant, Lord Byron, Goethe, Heine--all thought Napoleon was the Man of Destiny. As it worked out, it was the government of King George that prevailed and became the model for the future. King George wasn't very much, but he had the more successful business model and he never tried to transcend or transform it.
Every time. Every possible ray of hope. Every suggestion of a way forward. Every glimmer of light and encouragement.
To all of it the naysayers have responded with pessimism and despair.
What really is the greater disease?
Yes they made a big deal about tea pot done, after harding passed, but there have been bigger scams the veterans bureau precursor to the va was bad but did they let them die on the vine like shinseki. Harry dougherty was probably a crook, but worse than holder. Who didnt allow any major banks to be scrutinized who was behind fast and furious.
D.C. Mayor Bowser was out there yesterday demanding that people stay home, giving a thumbs down to one of those compromises of wearing a mask if that is what it takes to be able to go out. Invested in failure. Refusing -- refusing -- to allow any way forward.
"Thought tends to be a response to an outrage rather than to a question" ---- Don Colacho
"Sad!"
Saddam as the best well there was ghailiani, the son of the first prime miniter he was a nazi and fascist stooge his brownshirts were the golden square. Even after he was forced out, he issued a pogrom order against the remaining
Nuri al said was a relatively decent one in the 50s, he 'lost his head' in thr tevolution of 1958, it went downhill from there.
Now they are even blasting the sun.
this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light
Wilson was also a terrible racist.
Princeton would not admit blacks until the 1960s.
That was because of WoodyWoo.
Yes king george wasnt much even at the outset when the grafton govt collapsed in part under the accusations of janus the same guy who twenty years later would later convince burke to go after warren hastings
"To love is to understand the reason God created what we love" Don Colacho
"The wish to pray is a prayer in itself" Bernanos
"God loves us all"
especially YOU
take care,
always use your best judgement,
and stay safe.
The interplay of the grafton north and pitt regimes could be seen in georgianna the source for the dutchess.
I'm reading the bio of Grant. The big scandal of his administration was the Credit Mobilier. I suppose it was a scandal but those corrupt railroad magnates did succeed in building the trans-continental railroad in record time.....During Wilson's tenure in WWI, the Federal Government appropriated the patents of German companies. These valuable patents were distributed among connected Democrats at discount rates. If they had been sold at market rates, the government would have made many, many millions..... This scandal that was not a scandal dwarfed the amounts paid out in the Teapot Dome scandal.
Far more hard numbers and definitive concepts in economics than psychology.
Not a very deep point, but if about 7\8 of patients put on ventilators in NYC are dying, then the benefits of “flattering the curve” may be rather modest. Suppose a surge in cases led to a ventilator shortage such that 8,000 people who should have received ventilators died. If 7,000 of them would have died if given ventilators, then only 1,000 excess deaths are involved.
But I appreciate the ability to profit from the latter while denying the former.
Well there were foreign companies yes credit mobilier involved not only the vicepresident one other cabinet member fisher ames but a future presidential nominee james blaine.
Thats just off the top of my head.
Yes Lucien,
But we are now "king of ventilators".
Perhaps our efforts are better spent protecting the more vulnerable and accelerating treatments that prevent patients from hitting that cliff.
¡Cuidado, Lucien! ¡Cuidado, güalter! Suggesting the medical community’s pandemic response CONSENSUS wasn’t based on reliable scientific data es muy peligrosa.
Again, if WI transition is tethered to "case" decrease over 2 weeks..how do we get there?
Wisconsin has more than 5,000 COVID-19 cases as testing gets more aggressive
"The Wisconsin Department of Human Services reports 5,052 patients have tested positive for COVID-19 since early February. That's 207 more than yesterday.
But it also reflects the results of 2,161 new tests coming back in the latest 24-hour period, compared to almost 1,900 the day before, and about 1,300 the day before that.
9.58% of tests that came back in the past hours were positive. That's a decline from Wednesday, when almost 12% of tests were positive.
Going back to February, 51,456 tests for COVID-19 came back negative."
Far more hard numbers and definitive concepts in economics than psychology.
I don't know what you mean by "definitive concepts," but the "more hard numbers" is expected given the nature of what they're analyzing. And yet, no economist can make macroeconomic predictions that are any better than random guessing.
Yes, yes.
Also..it's all relative and we are doomed.
Run!
Or..start a family.
Mark,
Try "Ni!" Instead.
Dammit, I just realized my inclusion of the diæresis over the u in “gualter” was superfluous. Phone keyboards make it so much easier to include diacritics and special characters. I used to have to remember ASCII or pull up ye olde character map.
@William:
I'm reaching for a grand unified theory to explain why artists and intellectuals are so stupid. I submit this as one part of the problem:
My dorm room bull session proposal...
For any human being there are two world. The impersonal world that we interact with and that exists whether we are in it or not, and the impersonal world that exists inside our brains that we construct through learning and memory. The "stupid" is the incongruence of these two worlds. But...that person is really two people. The one that exists in the impersonal world, and the one that lives in your personal world.
J Farmer,
Neuropsychology. No, not a hard science, but the brain/mind is a black box, no? We know some things; we don't know many more things.
I did my doctoral work in neurophys/neuropharm. Psychiatrists are the ultimate pharmacologists. Still, it's a lot of guesswork.
I have family history that involves a lot of neuropsych. Sadly, no experts could save us. Not that I would expect miracles. It is a hard, hard field.
I would think Farmer enamored with Friedman's concepts re immigration and welfare.
J Farmer,
But the personal world is a story we tell ourselves--a movie we are playing in, if you will. In this story, we have a perception of ourselves, a role we see ourselves playing. This story is very powerful. It is, in many ways, the reality in which we act and react.
The tragedy of many lives is that people are acting in the impersonal world in the roles they perceive for themselves in the personal world.
I have a son who will pay the price for that discontinuity for the rest of his life.
Anne,
I had a buddy off himself back when certain antidepressants were beginning to be recognized for "paradoxical response".
walter,
Yes, the brain is a tricky thing. The problem with treating depression--whether with medication or CBT--is that there is a lag between the energy a person has and the insight he has. What I mean is that, when a person is deeply depressed, he often has such anergia that he cannot take any action--including the action to kill himself. As treatment progresses, especially with SSRIs, his energy increases--but his insight into his mental state lags. Suddenly, he has the energy to act on the impulses he had to hurt himself.
Psychiatry now is focused on pharmacology, not helping patients gain insight. Any patient being treated for depression also needs to have a therapist who helps him with gaining insight--cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy are extremely effective.
It is not enough to treat the brain--the mind must also be cared for.
Mark said...
A story about Deanna Dunn Corleone from the Washington Post --
Cristina Cuomo, wife to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and sister-in-law to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, recently revealed she bathed in Clorox bleach while recovering from the coronavirus, along with using multiple other holistic methods.
One of the really nice things about my well water is - no chlorine at all whatsoever. Usually. Whenever I replace the well pump, which seems to be about every 5 years, I superchlorinate it. Doesn't take much bleach to do it, either. I used 3 pints the last time, and it was overkill.
It was a bit amplified by having to reveal in front of my friend, the doc and the guy's mom that he had told me in private he couldn't say he'd be safe out of the facility.
(this after a very nearly successful 1st attempt.)
His mom was on Permanent psych disability herself.
walter:
I would think Farmer enamored with Friedman's concepts re immigration and welfare.
If it's Milton Friedman you're talking about, I think it's certainly true, but even without redistributionist policies, I'd still oppose it.
I am sorry, walter.
Suicide is an insidious monster. And perseverative thoughts are a bane of human existence. Our brains literally lay down circuits that encode and reinforce our thoughts--for good and for ill. We become victims of physiology.
And so often, the people close to the suicide have no idea what he was going through. I have a very dear friend whose beautiful, intelligent, seemingly happy son killed himself at age 21. A blow from which a parent never recovers.
Humans sometimes live in torment. How hard it is that we cannot heal the hurts that our fellow creatures suffer.
Gospace said...
--
Chris will make use of that info after all that pretend isolation.
Clean!
"even without redistributionist policies, I'd still oppose it. "
Well..we are aware.
will leave that to the psychologists ;)
Anne,
Agreed.
1st attempt seemed out of the blue.
Just felt I was strangely dismissed while kind of betraying confidence of a friend for zero ulterior motive.
My grandmother suffered severe postpartum depression. She was treated with electroconvulsive therapy. I suspect she suffered bouts of clinical depression through much of her adult life.
An aunt has been crippled by chronic fatigue syndrome for many years. She was forced into early retirement from her job as a special ed teacher.
My brother and a cousin both have bipolar disorder. That brother was also diagnosed with ADD in high school. My father probably has undiagnosed ADD.
My sister was anorexic, at one point only 100 lbs. at 5’9” tall. She went through a few years of therapy.
My other brother has OCD. When he’s not doing well, he will turn doorknobs so many times before opening doors.
Fortunately no suicides or attempts in our family.
And I just turned out to be homosexual.
@Anne:
Psychiatry now is focused on pharmacology, not helping patients gain insight
Though I do not blame the profession specifically, their role has contributed to a widespread myth in society that mental illness is a result of "chemical imbalances." This myth didn't originate with psychiatry but rather the pharmaceutical industry, which promoted it to psychiatrists. The obsession with serotonin and the SSRI revolution was particularly over-the-top. The obsession with dopamine and psychosis was another.
We have an extremely difficult time even identifying mental illnesses as discrete conditions and what is called "depression" could involve any number of issues. The etiology of any mental illness is even more unknown.
It is not enough to treat the brain--the mind must also be cared for.
I'm a materialist, so I reject mind-body dualism. While I think the nature of consciousness is probably beyond the capacity for us to understand, I do believe that consciousness is purely a matter of organic processes. I don't believe any subjective experience can survive the destruction of the brain.
JF,
I disagree with you on materialism, but agree on mind/body dualism. I am not a gnostic. What I mean by treating the mind is in line with what you assert--that the way consciousness works is far more complex than what we understand about brain chemistry,
I also decline to agree with you that pharma is the culprit here. You have never been a drug rep. Oh, how I wish I were as powerful as you seem to think I am. And how the companies wish we had the control over physicians you seem to think we have. No matter. We will probably disagree on that.
The ways in which our brains lay down circuits of common thought patterns is just beginning to reveal itself to us. I say "reveal," but we will always be ignorant, I think. We suffer from hubris when we think we can explain it by a neurotransmitter here or a different one there.
Nonetheless, we are faced with pathology--on a spectrum, to be sure--but I think it is inarguable that certain medications are helpful in certain pathologies. Antipsychotics help with the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Lithium, Depakote, and certain anticonvulsants help with bipolar. SSRIs and their kin help people with depression get to a place where they can manage life without them.
One should not worship at any altar, when it comes to neurology.
"I don't believe any subjective experience can survive the destruction of the brain."
...
NOT a volunteer!
"SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the appointment of Josh Fryday as California’s Chief Service Officer, leading California Volunteers.
“Josh is a leader with a lifelong commitment to service and will be an invaluable partner as we work to increase service and volunteerism in California,” said Governor Newsom. “I look forward to working with Josh to develop innovative service and volunteer opportunities, and forge vibrant new public-private partnerships that lift up communities throughout the state.”
Josh Fryday, 38, of Novato, has been appointed Chief Service Officer at California Volunteers, effective September 1, 2019. Fryday has been president of Golden State Opportunity since 2016. He was chief operating officer of NextGen Climate from 2013 to 2016. Fryday served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 2009 to 2013. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $209,943. Fryday is a Democrat."
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/07/12/governor-newsom-appoints-new-chief-service-officer-for-california/
There are at least 2 entities who share my brain. While writing a novel late at night, I would fall asleep. There were times I would keep typing. Except it wasn't me, since I was asleep. Whoever was typing, used my hands, and brain to continue typing actual words. In some cases, sentences. In one large sample, not just words, but also metaphor. One of my favorite lines from the mind who shares my brain was "My blog is the frog I am not."
So who am I. Is it me? Or do I include this other mind who seems to have a mind of its own? How does one brain have two minds?
We do not understand the mind/brain. We have these pills, they do stuff. We name things: OCD, manic/depressive, AKA bipolar, anxiety, as though we actually understand.
Before my son was diagnosed with OCD, we knew something was wrong, but did not know what it was. With no diagnosis, we took to calling it "invisible dragon", to remind us whatever this was, it was real, but we had no clue what it was.
We took him to Kaiser. This was when Kaiser did little for mental illness. After two years, a Kaiser doc told me: "Your son seems to have a long term mental health issue. Kaiser does not deal with long term mental health issues. Good luck finding someone who does." As far as Kaiser was concerned, they had diagnosed my son. He had a "long term mental health issue.". Kaiser didn't treat those. Problem solved.
After many adventures trying to get help, he was diagnosed, and medicated. The medication seems to have liberated him from his fears, so one day we got a call from school that he had been fighting with another boy in class. Freed from some of his fear, (OCD is the fear disease), he was able to fight back.
I have come to realize that my earlier diagnosis of invisible dragon may have been the most accurate diagnosis. It said that this problem was real, but impossible to see and understand. OCD claimed to know too much, as though they knew how to cure the dragon.
@Anne:
Trying to go for brevity, I was a bit slapdash in my comment. I wasn't trying to advance some "Big Pharma" conspiracy, but I do think the psychiatric profession gets undue blame in the "chemical imbalance" theory. But I do think they have played a role in marketing the theory and hyping the biological causes. I remember Pfizer being in some legal trouble over Zoloft but don't recall the outcome. Their direct-to-consumer advertising was pretty blatant, and a lot of trade publications would use the phrase "chemical imbalance." And there has been a history of some pretty clear suspect behavior in terms of some ethically-challenged research. I think the same is true in the marketing. I've read some stuff in DTC Perspectives that sounds pretty sleazy. I think there was a deep-dive into antidepressants after some backlash from benzos.
I do agree that psychotropics do offer benefit, but I think their efficacy is vastly overstated in many people's minds. I do think antipsychotics are one of the more beneficial, since they can often keep a person from institutionalization, and they've gotten much better than the old thorazine days. There is also pretty good reason to think mood stabilizers for Bipolar Disorder are usually quite effective, too. But mood disorders in general I think it gets less clear. I am not even entirely sure anitdepressants are that effective. Even in trials, they tend to only slightly outdo placebo, and I think there is good reason to suspect that there is no consistent relationship between serotonin and depression.
Also agree about worshiping at the "altar" of neurology. I think people tend to vastly overestimate how much we know about the brain. I remember when fMRI scans started becoming a big thing, I was shocked at the assumptions people were making about the quality of research that was being published. A NYT headline: "Now scientists say the feeling is not only real, but they can show what happens in the brain to cause it."Talk about facepalm!
Farmer said.
"It amazes me the way economics, with its complicated models, seemingly-mathematical orientation, and use of terms like "law" and "theory," has convinced people that it should be taken seriously. Economists tend to filter into various schools of thought not on the basis of dispassionate, empirical weighing of the evidence but rather on the basis of their moral worldview. They cannot make reliable predictions. Their models require a huge number of assumptions. "
And yet it is still the best predictor of human behavior than any of the other social so called sciences.
@Rusty:
And yet it is still the best predictor of human behavior than any of the other social so called sciences.
Economics doesn't really attempt to predict human behavior, per se. They make predictions about different economic indicators. And at this, they're terrible. Wall Street's firms are no better at predicting S&P 500 performance then anyone else. Neither the Feds Open Market Committee nor the CBO can reliability predict GDP growth. The accuracy of future growth is even worse. And most significantly, no single economist has ever demonstrated an ability to predict a recession. Their predictions are no better than random guessing.
"Now scientists say the feeling is not only real, but they can show what happens in the brain to cause it."
These things are easier to understand when you realize that your feelings, thoughts and emotions are not mystical, and also not ends in themselves, they're just ways to modify your physical behavior, e.g. sadness (or happiness) over some event serves the same purpose as the sensation of physical pain (or pleasure).
The rebound in stocks has had a lulling effect. It also enabled the last of the super-strong, popular stocks, like AMZN, NFLX, and WMT, to make one more new high. That's what can happen in bear markets. On the first rebound, the strongest stocks put on their final flourish. Not only do their charts look like sells to me, but many stocks have been unable to break back up through broken uptrends. Disney, for example. One man's opinion, one who thinks the market is still extremely dangerous for investors.
J.
Not at predicting markets but what humans do. See the thread about the 600$ stimulus checks. Tell me. Who didn't see that coming?
@Rusty:
Who didn't see that coming?
Exactly. That doesn't really counter my point.
@Fernandistein:
These things are easier to understand when you realize that your feelings, thoughts and emotions are not mystical, and also not ends in themselves, they're just ways to modify your physical behavior, e.g. sadness (or happiness) over some event serves the same purpose as the sensation of physical pain (or pleasure).
I agree that they are not mystical. But we certainly don't know that "feelings, thoughts and emotions...[are] just ways to modify your physical behavior." In any event, regarding the headline about feelings, measures of oxygenated blood to certain areas of the brain do not "show what happens in the brain to cause it." We do not know what causes emotions, and there is no evidence that specific emotions are localized to regions of the brain.
Don't worry, it's like the flu, it's mortality rate is becoming more and more approximate - - you think not- how about a tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZkTh_T75QY
Look after yourself and cheer up. Get it on.
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