Althouse: Sunbeams, 6:27 a.m.

April 9, 2020

Sunbeams, 6:27 a.m.

0A8E08FD-91A1-4759-8EE9-D5C0E66E7DC7_1_201_a

"Actual" sunrise time: 6:25.

50 comments:

Kay said...: It looks like it’s firing off lasers, lol.; 4/9/20, 9:05 AM
Howard said...: Looks like lens flare; 4/9/20, 9:17 AM
mockturtle said...: British media fake news: BBC claims, without evidence, that English King Henry II considered converting to Islam. The sole basis for this absurd article is that Henry II wrote a letter to Pope Alexander in which he said that he “would sooner accept the errors of Nur al-Din [the Sultan of Aleppo] and become an infidel, than suffer Thomas [Becket] to hold sway in Canterbury Cathedral any longer.” Yes, that’s it. item per Jihad Watch.; 4/9/20, 9:17 AM
Howard said...: I really like the simplicity of this photo it has a deep calming effect on my primitive neanderthal mind; 4/9/20, 9:18 AM
Mark said...: What's with all these posts by AA simply perpetuating the worst of the hack media??

Question: Does it help?

In the long run, the poison that the New York Times and Washington Post spew will be more deadly to society than any biological agent.; 4/9/20, 9:26 AM
Jimmy said...: "What's with all these posts by AA simply perpetuating the worst of the hack media??" and- vanity fair, new yorker, NPR. Just to name a few. All of those start the debate with, as a trump supporter, have you stopped beating your wife and kids. and then proceed to twist anything into an anti trump screed. seriously, Pravda would be embarrassed by the BS that those publications routinely vomit. and have for decades.; 4/9/20, 9:45 AM
Mark said...: Reposting this for comment from late last night --

So -- there are some reports that maybe full ventilators with intubation are not always the best and may even be more harmful than beneficial. Rather, less aggressive means are perhaps better, such as CPAP machines that many people already use to sleep at night.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/; 4/9/20, 9:46 AM
Jupiter said...: It's Over. Turn the World back on!; 4/9/20, 9:49 AM
Paul said...: I should have known you'd bid me farewell
There's a lesson to be learned from this and I learned it very well
Now I know you're not the only starfish in the sea
If I never hear your name again, it's all the same to me

And I think it's gonna be all right
Yeah, the worst is over now
The mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball

Apropos to The Cyrkle; 4/9/20, 9:52 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Nice pic!

4 Days of sunshine in NorCal for the Easter Weekend! I think I might go for a hike in the woods with my dog. Wait. I've been doing that every day for the past month. My dog is sick of the woods:)

Keep spirits up, folks. This too shall pass. Sooner than you think.; 4/9/20, 9:57 AM
Lucien said...: It's looking like our President's intuition about Easter being an aspirational goal for opening up the country will seem pretty good in a few weeks. After the federal guidance is relaxed, there should be state by state recommendations as to when things should open up. Then a little later the recalcitrant governors who refuse to reopen their states should realize that there will be no more federal money for their self-inflicted economic wounds. There should be a lot of polling of public opinion in those states, too.; 4/9/20, 10:02 AM
traditionalguy said...: Rise and shine. It’s V V Day. Victory over Virus. And the Globalists wept.; 4/9/20, 10:07 AM
Ken B said...: Fauci credits the distancing measures, so fiercely opposed by many here, with saving a lot of lives.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/fauci-says-u-s-virus-deaths-may-be-60-000-halving-projections; 4/9/20, 10:07 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: "The IHME has also reduced its projected number of nationwide COVID-19 deaths by the beginning of August to 60,415, a 35% decrease from the 93,531 nationwide deaths its model had projected on April 1." https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/08/seven-states-hit-peak-new-york-coronavirus/

That, folks, is called a bad flu season. And I bet it goes down further. The CDC has lived up to its motto: "When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."

Althouse, you should be embarrassed at being so gullible. Do I remember your positing an 11 million-death scenario that you had read in print somewhere? It was preposterous.; 4/9/20, 10:08 AM
traditionalguy said...: New Wall Street Hymn: It is risen!; 4/9/20, 10:08 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Archbishop calls for Mass Exorcism .

Not to disparage my own church, but I don't think Satan is causing all this mass stupidity.......; 4/9/20, 10:09 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: "Fauci credits the distancing measures, so fiercely opposed by many here, with saving a lot of lives."

He would say that, wouldn't he? He has no accountability for the lives he has burdened with his fecklessness. I eagerly await the outcome of the Swedish approach, if they stay with it.; 4/9/20, 10:11 AM
Mark said...: Some people are most concerned with the covid contagion and stopping its spread. Some people are also concerned with balancing the public health concerns with the economic health concerns.

Other people think the greatest concern is to denigrate fellow commenters and to distort and spread disinformation about what they have said and think.; 4/9/20, 10:15 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Medical group endorses anti-malarial drug treatment for coronavirus patients

These Docs are slow! But, hey, better late that never.

Not a panacea, mind you. I don't know if it will work, but no reason not to try it (for those patients who want to try it).; 4/9/20, 10:17 AM
Mark said...: Well, maybe. But I don't think that Satan is sitting this one out, either.; 4/9/20, 10:18 AM
madAsHell said...: I guess the "actual" time is whatever you capture on the camera.; 4/9/20, 10:21 AM
rhhardin said...: The news business has two factions, all parasitic on soap opera women's tastes.

The one produces soap opera for those women, who tune in every day, news or no news, so long as there is soap opera. That's the MSM. The dems are parasitic on this, as suppliers of soap opera narratives.

The other is non soap opera incredulity about what the left just said. This is right wing blogs, still parasitic on soap opera women but at one further step removed.

There's no hard news anywhere. Think city council meetings. No eyeballs so no clicks and no revenue.; 4/9/20, 10:22 AM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: A Crude Prediction:
1. Retrospective antibody analysis will show that the virus spread much farther than currently recognized, starting in December.
2. It will be recognized that it was useless to close down the country, social distance, and kill the economy.
3. At some point in the future, an enemy of America will release a true and effective bioweapon. Based on our over-reaction to this virus, we will under-react, with terrible consequences.; 4/9/20, 10:23 AM
rhhardin said...: Want to calibrate your camera clock? Photograph an "atomic" clock. No need to adjust the camera clock, just use it as a correction until the next time you photograph a clock. Keep the pics in your photostream.; 4/9/20, 10:24 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: @Mark,

"Well, maybe. But I don't think that Satan is sitting this one out, either."

Fair point -- maybe Satan is making all these people stupid:); 4/9/20, 10:24 AM
Mark said...: Senate Democrats just blocked, by objecting to a unanimous consent request, $250 billion dollars to save people's jobs in the Payment Protection Program.; 4/9/20, 11:04 AM
Narr said...: WTIC, aye to #3. And it has already been suggested that this whole thing has been a CCP test of new biological and technical approaches to dealing with non-CCPers.

I hope-suspect your other points will prove out also.

Narr
Can you say Manbearpig?; 4/9/20, 11:05 AM
Mark said...: McConnell Adjourns Senate After Democrats Quash GOP Small-Business-Loan Bill

Senate Democrats Thursday thwarted a Republican plan to add $250 billion to the government’s small-business-lending program, insisting that the bill also include aid to hospitals, healthcare systems, state and local governments and food-assistance programs. . . .

On Thursday McConnell tried to approve the GOP measure by a unanimous vote, as few senators were left in the Capitol. But Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) objected, quashing the legislation. . . .; 4/9/20, 11:10 AM
heyboom said...: Fox Doc's Report on Malaria Meds for CV Patients Turns Emotional: 'I Want to Tell You About a 96-Year-Old Man ...'; 4/9/20, 11:11 AM
Mark said...: McConnell pleaded with Democrats to pass a measure that would change the funding for the program from $350 billion to $600 billion total in a "clean" emergency measure.

"My colleagues must not treat working Americans as political hostages. This does not have to be, nor should it be, contentious." McConnell said, adding that lawmakers can pass other COVID-19 legislation in the future.

"Please do not block emergency aid you do not even oppose, just because you want something more," McConnell implored. . . . "We cannot play games with this crisis," McConnell said.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-effort-for-250b-in-small-business-help-fails-in-senate; 4/9/20, 11:15 AM
Faygo said...: Chuck, Chuck, Chuck.

ChiCom, ChiCom, ChiComs.

But only every single time.

Unexpectedly.

ChiCom, LLR. Of course, unexpectedly.

Why it’s almost as if the ChiComs were somehow involved. Chuck.

But only every single ChiCom. The media.

Inga.

Unexpectedly.; 4/9/20, 11:23 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: I have a new hero. His name is @West Texas Intermediate Crude:

Crude Prediction:
1. Retrospective antibody analysis will show that the virus spread much farther than currently recognized, starting in December.
2. It will be recognized that it was useless to close down the country, social distance, and kill the economy.
3. At some point in the future, an enemy of America will release a true and effective bioweapon. Based on our over-reaction to this virus, we will under-react, with terrible consequences.

1 and 2 are spot on, although 3 is a little off.

Well Done, WTIC! Bookmark this comment.; 4/9/20, 11:30 AM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: Thank you, BAG.
I'm interested in knowing your reason for thinking that #3 is off- certainly I hope I'm wrong and it never comes to pass, but it's not only the Democrats who don't let a crisis go to waste. In any event, we don't yet know if the current matter is a natural disaster, a horrible accident, a probe gone wrong, or a probe gone right.; 4/9/20, 11:47 AM
daskol said...: It took us 40 years from the Oil Embargo in the 70s to become energy independent. What we can learn from this debacle, leading to changes that don't take 40 years to accomplish: build crucial stuff in America, even if it's "cheaper" abroad (and use tariffs or "buy local" rules to get there), from the local family owned business to the federal govt, rejigger supply chains to be robust to border closures and less dependent on other nations. Some people have been saying we need to do this for a long time, Trump among them, having taken out ads in NYT in the 80s on this subject. Ensure that stockpiles of needed supplies are built up during good times.

If we take these measures, it will be less costly to shut our borders, ground international or even some/most domestic air travel and respond timely and aggressively to bio-threats in the future. Act early, on borders and global travel, and action will be effective and cheap compared to what we experienced in trying to slow the spread of this virus. I don't think that makes us vulnerable to another attack even if some measures taken this time were unhelpful or destructive.; 4/9/20, 12:05 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Howdy @WITC,

I'm interested in knowing your reason for thinking that #3 is off- certainly I hope I'm wrong and it never comes to pass, but it's not only the Democrats who don't let a crisis go to waste. In any event, we don't yet know if the current matter is a natural disaster, a horrible accident, a probe gone wrong, or a probe gone right.

You're on the right track, but it's complicated. I dunno if you ever served in the military but way back when they taught us about "ABC" Warfare (Atomic, Biological, Chemical). A certainly works (see Hiroshima circa 1945). C certainly works (See Sarin gas).

B has always been dicey for different reasons.

If you are interested, google history of "Ft. Detrick" in Maryland.

Here's a nice article that skims the surface.

Interesting quote: "That evidence includes a study “conducted by the South China University of Technology, [that] concluded that the coronavirus ‘probably’ originated in the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention,” located just 280 meters from the Hunan Seafood Market often cited as the source of the original outbreak."

Have a great day!; 4/9/20, 12:16 PM
mandrewa said...: That’s it? That’s all?

Eighteen hundred dead? That’s less than California murders. It’s less than California gun deaths. It’s a third of our drug overdose deaths, for heaven’s sake, and guess what?

The trillion dollars we lost from the government shutting down the California economy?

It won’t save one of those 1,783 people. Not one.

It will just delay their deaths by a week or two.

That's Willis Eschenbach writing about guess what

Most of us are pretty bad at math. And by most of us, I mean somewhere between 98 to 99 percent.

But Willis Eschenbach is pretty good at it. Plus he's honest, which is a potent combination.

In this article as in most of his articles he shows his argument and methods, which unfortunately most people are not going to be able to follow.

But skipping the details and going straight to the conclusion, it looks like the stay at home orders, educational facilities closed orders, and non-essential services closed orders are having zero effect from a statistical perspective on the spread of the virus.

This is in the context of the United States and comparing to the known data on the spread of the virus state by state and when these orders went into effect in each state.

It's counter-intuitive and surprising, particular the bit about the schools, but however much our logic may tell us these things should have an effect you can't see any change statistically in the patterns and rate of infections after these measures were applied.

The eighteen hundred dead number doesn't come from this analysis, but rather straight from the federal government's current IHME model as of April 8th, which by the way has changed frequently and keeps getting adjusted downward.; 4/9/20, 12:58 PM
mandrewa said...: Willis Eschenbach,

"So this is a plea for all you women and men at the top, the ones deciding when to call off the madness, I implore you—get up out of your offices, look around you, go to a small town and talk to some unemployed businesswoman whose local enterprise is now belly-up, understand what the loss of that business means to that small town, and GET AMERICA WORKING AGAIN TODAY! Not tomorrow. Today. Every day is endless pain and worry for far too many.

Here’s how crazy this lockdown is. You folks who decide on this for California? You are costing us trillions of dollars, and you are literally killing people through increased suicide and depression and domestic violence, and it’s all in the name of delaying a couple of thousand deaths. Not preventing the deaths, you understand. Delaying the deaths.

Killing people to delay death, that sounds like a charmingly Aztec plan, it comes complete with real human sacrifices …

Sheesh … it’s not rocket science. Further delay at this point won’t help. End the American lockdown today, leave the schools closed, let’s get back to business.

And yes, of course I’d include all the usual actions and recommendations in addition to leaving the schools closed—the at-risk population, who are those with underlying conditions, particularly the elderly, should avoid crowds. And of course continue to follow the usual precautions—wash your hands; wear a mask at normal functions and not, as in your past, just at bank robberies; only skype or facetime with pangolins, no hootchie cootchie IRL; refrain from touching your face; sanitize hard surfaces; y’all know the drill by now … the reality is we’ll all be exposed to coronavirus sooner or later. And like the Spanish Flu and Hong Kong Flu and a host of diseases before and after them, after a couple of years the once-novel coronavirus will no longer be novel. It will simply become part of the background of diseases inhabiting our world like the Swine flu and the Bird Flu, all dressed disreputably and hanging out on every street corner in every town waiting for someone to mug … "; 4/9/20, 1:11 PM
h said...: Replying to WTIC (and supporters) who writes: " Retrospective antibody analysis will show that the virus spread much farther than currently recognized, starting in December."

I've begun to worry that we don't have (will never have) reliable data on which to base retrospective analysis. Right now we don't know the extent to which changes over time or differences over geographical location are due to true differences in extent of infection, or differences in testing availability. Even individuals do not know whether they have contracted the virus (without symptoms, or with mild symptoms). And the one thing I had been thinking was "reliable" would be "deaths" but I now see that there are differences in locations and perhaps over time in which constitutes a Covid related death.

I think it would be a very wise expenditure of some of the billions now available to fund an intensive data collection along these lines. Draw a random sample of individuals from the population (not sure how many, statisticians? but at least 1,000; probably not 10,000); offer them a substantial sum $1000? to participate; send well equipped and trained medical professionals to their homes to draw a blood sample and fill out an extensive questionnaire; test the blood (we can do this right?) for evidence that person now has the Covid related diseases, or has been exposed to the virus. Repeat the process (perhaps with a more limited questionnaire) with the same households in (say) a month, and two months, etc.

Then at least we will have a reliable data set on which to draw some conclusions for future epidemics.; 4/9/20, 1:52 PM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: h-
I don't know for sure, but I suspect there are plenty of blood samples that were collected for various reasons last fall, that could be tested. Randomness would be a problem, but they could test, for example, samples from armed forces recruits who were presumably healthy, or a random sample of executive exams, or some other group other than folks who were sick with flu symptoms. Everything suitably anonymous, of course.

BAG- I spent most of a decade on active duty, too much of it in MOPP gear. It was called NBC (nuclear/biological/chemical) as I recall, in those days. We would never use the B weapon for the reasons you state, among others, but not sure that some of our adversaries would be unwilling to lose a million or ten of their more vulnerable citizens to collapse our economy on a long term basis.

Based on the recent behavior of the CCP, the least nefarious perspective that I can see is that they are trying to make lemonade out of a very sour lemon.; 4/9/20, 2:16 PM
Mark said...: ????

Was it her?; 4/9/20, 2:17 PM
tim in vermont said...: I was curious about California, so I did something. I downloaded the daily data from github and ran it against the census lists of metropolitan statistical areas, so instead of Los Angeles, you get Los Angeles - Long Beach - Anaheim, for example. On the theory that by expanding the area you are getting numbers that are more statistically stable, but by using the statistical areas you get areas that are economically connected, bedroom community commuting, route sales to stores, etc. I am a little rusty, but this is very close to stuff I worked on professionally, it took me a day to write these scripts, (I am ashamed to admit that until two days ago, I didn’t know that I could run the Unix shell right on my Mac as it comes out of the box) but now I can download the data every day and automatically update the data with a single command.

I don’t see this “California Miracle.” What I see is cases and deaths following the same pattern in California as everywhere else, they are just somewhat behind for a reason I don’t pretend to understand. The curve is not flattened in California any more than anywhere else.

I will try to publish it to Twitter when I feel more confident about it. If you say that by combining the counties, I am inflating the numbers, you are disqualified from commenting, as I am talking about the shape of the curve, “exponential,” not the absolute numbers. I will also try to correct for the population, but the Census Bureau publishes a list of statistical areas in one spreadsheet, and then publishes the population statistics in another different spreadsheet using different aggregations. Go figure. Something to do.

My goal is to come up with a “hotspot” dashboard that scans for and spots flareups in even small places like Omaha or Allentown and publish it as a blog. "I have a very specific set of skills.” I was going to use this idea to follow athletes for fantasy sports, but this will work too.; 4/9/20, 2:30 PM
tim in vermont said...: "it looks like the stay at home orders, educational facilities closed orders, and non-essential services closed orders are having zero effect from a statistical perspective on the spread of the virus.”

They aren’t bending the curve very much from what? Do we know what it would look like without these actions? Sweden looks like an outlier on the bad side regarding deaths right now after following your preferred policy, The UK had to abandon their policy of “ride it out” pretty quickly, and it’s not true that they never tried it. Where lockdowns have been lifted, they get clamped on again right quick. Japan, Singapore.

Advocate for lifting the lockdowns, but don’t pretend it will be without real costs. You can say that the alternative is worse, fine. Make your case based on what we know about the real world, not assumptions this person or that person folded into some model.; 4/9/20, 2:44 PM
mandrewa said...: Tim, have you read the article?

He explains the method. Do you understand what's he is doing?

Something I understand quite clearly is that almost everyone is going to be exposed to this eventually. At best -- and the evidence Eschenbach presents shows that it doesn't even really do that -- but at its best social distancing delays the date on which you are exposed to the virus.

For most people that doesn't change the outcome.

Furthermore unlike Italy we don't seem to have a shortage of medical facilities. Even in New York there seem to be more than enough hospitals and intensive care units.

And as for costs, I'm tempted to say, "How dare you talk of costs?"; 4/9/20, 3:45 PM
Mark said...: Whatever happened to Sabrina Lloyd? I had totally forgotten about her.; 4/9/20, 4:05 PM
tim in vermont said...: "For most people that doesn't change the outcome.”

So it doesn’t matter if the hospitals are overwhelmed? Is that his take on it? I agree that most people are going to get it, and if it is really spread by asymptomatic people a lot of the time, herd immunity is not going to be a factor, it will find you hiding from it. But I don’t buy his argument that it doesn’t matter whether you receive medical attention or not. That seems a little bit outside of his area of expertise.

"Even in New York there seem to be more than enough hospitals and intensive care units.”

With a draconian lockdown in place. Oh, that’s right, lockdowns don’t matter, all they do is slow... wait a minute!

This is what bothers me. If you were calmly reasoning about it, let’s say if a liberal had made that argument about something else, and used that kind of “logic” you would have been all over the flaw in that argument.; 4/9/20, 5:20 PM
mandrewa said...: Tim, if you would just read the article, you will find a graph titled "Hospital Resource Use".

It's numbers for California and they come from the IHME model. Willis Eschenbach only addresses California, possibly because he is a California resident, but more likely because it would complicate things to consider each state's different situation.

Blame me for bringing up New York, although it is my impression that there is also not a shortage of hospitals in New York and that according to the IHME model New York is close to its peak right now.

But getting back to California, there are 1,993 ICU beds available in California, with an estimated 798 ICU beds that will be needed at the peak of the epidemic. There are 26,654 non-ICU beds available and it's estimated 4,869 of those will be needed.

(And by the way many of those beds would normally be filled, which is why many hospitals are going bankrupt right now.)

So do you see that hospitals, although I imagine there are exceptions, are not being overwhelmed?

And as for lockdowns mattering, well that's the main point of this article you're not reading, because, counterintuitively, the data he is looking at isn't showing an impact from the various lockdowns. Or not a statistically significant impact. There has to be an impact for individuals but if we look at the population as a whole, it's like the virus is doing exactly what one would expect it to do if there were no lockdown.

Eschenbach's guess as to why, which is irrelevant to his argument, is that people are pretty bad at social distancing and that the virus is very good at spreading.; 4/9/20, 5:50 PM
narciso said...: oh she went over to the tv show, numbers, in the mid 00s, but after that,; 4/9/20, 6:09 PM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: Not hearing the phrase "Flatten the curve" as much these days.
It was always a theoretical construct, with respect to whether the straight line resource limit was above or intersected with the utilization curve.
Now, at least in CA, the line is well above the available resources, at least according to mandwera above.
If he's anywhere near correct, we put garbage in, and we are getting garbage and economic disaster out.
A good outcome for garbage dealers with a stake in economic disaster.; 4/9/20, 6:29 PM
tim in vermont said...: I probably should shitcan all of the data that came out before widespread testing became available. That probably exaggerates the nature of the expansion of the illness. Or at least demark it carefully on my graphs.; 4/9/20, 8:18 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: "Sunbeams"

Looks to me like you tried to clean the lens (or plastic cover over it). I'm pretty sure the effect is in the camera and not the atmosphere.

It is very hard to clean multicoated lenses well, i.e., to not make things worse, or to avoid damaging them. Unless you've stuck your greasy paw right on it, it's better to just blow them off with a little squeezy thing or with canned air.

I haven't wiped my camera lenses in years, and have no plans to do so.

To be fair, you'd only notice the problem in a picture like this.; 4/9/20, 8:36 PM