Althouse: At the Friday Night Café...

April 22, 2022

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

35 comments:

BUMBLE BEE said...: rom ACE of Spades... CNN+ didn't even last as long as Jeffrey Toobin during a Zoom meeting.; 4/22/22, 6:34 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Try the Veal; 4/22/22, 6:35 PM
Mason G said...: While progressives are fighting to preserve their ability to groom six-year-olds, this music video shows what flies in flyover country.

Watch it and tell me who you'd prefer teaching your children.; 4/22/22, 6:46 PM
Bob Boyd said...: CNN should give all the people who worked there a participation trophy as they let them go. It's the least they can do.; 4/22/22, 6:51 PM
Lurker21 said...: I turned on the radio this morning and was excited that Congress was finally talking about using the 25th Amendment to get rid of incompetent Biden.

But it turned out it was a tape from last year about getting rid of Trump two weeks or so before his term ended, because of some January 6th thing. Major disappointment.; 4/22/22, 6:57 PM
Lurker21 said...: All these stories about math and political correctness took me back to my school days. Algebra I and II and Geometry weren't awful and actually seemed useful, or at least marginally interesting, but then for senior year we had to do Functions and Trigonometry, which was painful boring, and (since I didn't become a surveyor) utterly useless. Why didn't they just give us Calculus (which was at least marginally interesting and possibly even useful) like they did for the "smarter" kids? I can sort of solve equations for x or discover which angles are complementary (or whatever it is that angles are), but can't for the life of me remember anything about sines and cosines. If I could remember it would only be with anger and spite.

School regrets: Taking second year Physics and the Physics Achievement Test. Not having to cut up any animals and not blowing anything up seemed like plusses, but I would rather have taken another English or History (or Social Studies) or Art History (if that had been an option) rather than any more Science.

Another regret: Not taking another language. French, though, was too much for me. It seems like one can learn any language if the grammar were taught in one's own language, but everything in class was in French. I guess we were given a list of French expressions to be used in class and told to memorize it, but they must have told us in French, which guaranteed that nobody understood what they were supposed to do. When the teacher would say things like "Rendez les feuilles" I just snickered and thought it was stupid.; 4/22/22, 7:09 PM
Gospace said...: I’ve known for a while commenters on one blog have been referring to us evil unvaccinated as “purebloods” and the vaxxed as “mudbloods”. And it’s now spread to several other blogs.

The disgust the commenters and blog owners who use these terms for the vaxxed is displayed quite openly. The reason is really quite simple. The history of attempts to develop any coronavirus vaccine, human or animal, before the dreaded covid were 100% unsuccessful, and many of the failures made the problem worse. There was no reason at all to think this magical mRNA vaccine would work any better. And for many of us the logic of forcing human cells to create the spike protein, the whole entire spike protein known to be dangerous all by itself, escaped us, for there is no logic to it.

To anyone paying attention it’s obvious the mRNA vaccines are not only a complete failure, but that they appear, as several previous coronavirus vaccine attempts using more traditional vaccine creations, are themselves causing health problems.

All cause mortality for 16-40 age group is above historical norms, and going up. From several of the most pessimistic bloggers analyzing numbers I personally strongly suspect that by the end of 2022 we’re going to see an increase in cancer diagnosis and death, and it’s going to be worse in the most vaccinated with the most boosters. And the “experts” will all explain in unison it has nothing to do with the dreaded covid vaccine.; 4/22/22, 7:29 PM
Paddy O said...: Mudbloods is a deeply offensive word in the Potterverse and used by the followers of Voldemort, with the Death Eaters seeing themselves as purebloods out to purify the wizarding world. I'm not sure Voldemort and the Death Eaters are really the model that the anti-vaccine adherents want to see themselves as. That usage is just really bad PR waiting to happen and valorizes the vaccine folks as representing the good side.; 4/22/22, 7:38 PM
Carol said...: Four Pfizer and still going strong.

I should come to aAlthouse comments for medical advice?; 4/22/22, 7:50 PM
Joe Smith said...: Learn Spanish and Chinese if you're under 50.

Or at least learn useful phrases like 'Presione uno para inglés.'; 4/22/22, 8:11 PM
Narr said...: My big problem with algebra is that I never gave a crap what the value of 'X' was.; 4/22/22, 8:18 PM
Gospace said...: ” Carol said...
Four Pfizer and still going strong.

I should come to aAlthouse comments for medical advice?”

Statistics apply to large numbers, not to individual people or specific events. Never vaxxed, multiple close exposures as defined by the CDC, never contracted the dreaded covid. Which according to Dr Fraudci is impossible since the dreaded covid virus is far more contagious than any other ever seen on planet Earth. But confirmed by multiple blood tests during the covidiocy thanks to the Red Cross.

And for free medical advice- get your doctor to order up a Vitamin D blood level for you. My previous one before the covidiocy was 60 ng/ml. The one I had last week 53. There is still no record of anyone with a level of 50 ng/ml and above being admitted to the ICU or dying of the dreaded covid. A much better statistical record than the jab has, even 4 of them. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked the NP I saw last at the medical practice I go to to order the test she said she ordered it for all her patients getting routine exams.; 4/22/22, 8:39 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Every News outlet blames Trump and speaks as if Trump were still president.

Putin chose to invade during Biden.

No one in the media will even discuss Biden, unless it's blanket glowing terms. So ridiculous.; 4/22/22, 8:48 PM
Carol said...: My D level was 75 last year.

Anyway, I see I'm not the only one who ruminates over high school courses taken/not taken.

I do know that you need trig for calculus, except for business applications.; 4/22/22, 9:09 PM
tim in vermont said...: Calculus is basically advanced trigonometry or magic with trigonometry and without trig you would not have a prayer. Trigonometry is the basis of classical mechanics, try managing vectors without it. Try understanding how a sailboat can sail into the wind without it, which is probably why the Greeks could only sail downwind and felt that they had to make sacrifices to the wind gods to get anywhere.; 4/22/22, 9:15 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Tim,
You're triggering me and hurting my feelings. Trigonometry = hate, man. Stop all that colonialism, too.; 4/22/22, 9:19 PM
Narr said...: One of the best things about Althouse is that the math tests are optional.

See you tomorrow.; 4/22/22, 9:57 PM
Original Mike said...: Trigonometry is awsome.; 4/22/22, 10:07 PM
Original Mike said...: "There is still no record of anyone with a level of 50 ng/ml and above being admitted to the ICU or dying of the dreaded covid."

I doubt that data exists in any comprehensive fashion. Got links to the papers?; 4/22/22, 10:11 PM
Dr Weevil said...: I was actually paid to do trigonometry only 4 years after graduating form college. Surprised the Hell out of me.

It was 1979, and I was programming in HP Extended Basic on an HP 9845 computer for a company that measured air pollution from moving trucks and airplanes. Knowing where the airplane was at any given time required trigonometry. There was a 3-letter-name navigation system (V-something-something) that the airplane would tune into to get distances from known ground stations, and I had to solve side-side-side triangle problems to see where it was. The locations of the ground stations were known, the distance between them could be easily calculated, and we had the distance of the plane from the two stations (in tenths of a mile - not all that precise). Fortunately, I remembered just enough of the trig I'd had in high school and college to figure out what sines/tangents/whatever needed to be calculated, and even the primitive computers of 1979 had all the Trig functions. The only problem was that there were two different answers to each problem, one on each side of the baseline - the line connecting the two transmitting stations. Of course, we knew where the plane took off, so it was easy to see where the first point was. The pilots always had 4-5 stations they could tune into, and sometimes they would fly back and forth across their chosen baseline or (worse) fly spirals above it. I spent a lot of time selecting ranges of data points and flipping them across the baseline until I got a reasonable-looking graph matching the pilot's description of where he had been. It was quite an interesting job that I pretty much stumbled into: they hired me to drive the truck with all the pollution sensors in it, trained me as a data processor, then as a programmer.

I was so grateful when I realized that my complete ignorance of calculus, which I had had in high school and college and remembered only long enough to pass the tests, was not a problem: trig was the most I needed. We often needed to calculate the area under a curve, but with the computer we could just divide it up into hundreds or thousands of slices and add them up by brute force before averaging and multiplying by the width.

While teaching high-school Latin over the years I have covered a trig class for a sick teacher two or three times, and enjoyed telling the students that trig can actually be useful and a way to make money. They were always surprised.; 4/22/22, 10:41 PM
madAsHell said...: I'm thinking about the CNN/CNN+ debacle. CNN+ was a non-starter. CNN+ died several years ago even before inception. It died when everyone started carrying laptops, wi-fi became ubiquitous, and airports installed tables with power for re-charging the mobile devices.

Yeah....not that profound, but Chris Wallace must be a fucking idiot.

Universal remotes with an ON/OFF button didn't help either.; 4/22/22, 11:24 PM
jrapdx said...: Gospace said: "...There is still no record of anyone with a level of 50 ng/ml and above being admitted to the ICU or dying of the dreaded covid. ..."

There are *many* reports re: vitamin D levels and COVID. The upshot is that deficiency (<20ng/ml) of vit D *is* associated with higher rates of severe disease, hospitalization and death. And higher levels from 30 up to 60ng/ml largely protected against hospitalization, etc.

However there *have been* hospitalizations and deaths among people with Vit D levels at 60ng/ml. In a study from the Dept of Veteran Affairs mortality rate due to COVID was 6.6% for those with Vit D at 60ng/ml.

So yeah, a good level of vit D reduces the odds considerably, but not a guarantee against catching COVID or dying from it.

(See this review article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8838864/ ); 4/22/22, 11:34 PM
Joe Smith said...: Is it possible to watch TV or listen to the radio these days without being subjected to ads for dick pills?

It's at all hours of the day and night.

We've lost our decorum...; 4/22/22, 11:55 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Can stories that were quashed by the mainstream media and the socials, only to have them appear in publication now, some years later. Can those stories be called “remedial” stories?

Remedial courses (sometimes called developmental education or prerequisites) are non-credit-bearing coursework that students must complete before starting courses that count toward graduation. They're supposed to ensure that students are fully prepared for credit-bearing coursework.

Although not covering Biden’s noticiable decline shows less than full commitment to the basics of their craft. To put it mildly.; 4/23/22, 12:21 AM
Gospace said...: jrapdx, I just skimmed through the article you referenced. The reduction in death rates among VA patients is remarkable- especially the VA admitting it. I work at a VA hospital, and get some of my healthcare through the VA. I think it's safe to say that all the VA patients who died from the dreaded covid are the ones listed with 2 or more comorbidities, the most prevalent, of course, being obesity. I strongly suspect that a further analysis of the ones with 60 ng/ml or greater who died suffered from more than 2- and may have been among those who died WITH covid, not FROM covid, but were recorded as covid deaths. Of course, they don't correlate the deaths with comorbidities. I don't work in the medical field, and have no patient contact. But I've walked through patient wards in many VA hospitals, and inpatients in them are generally in sad physical shape. I don't trust the VA to provide my primary care. I see them for keeping track of my service connected disabilities- and I've been told by many that my disability rating is far too low.

If you are otherwise healthy- you won't die FROM covid with a level of 50 ng/ml or greater. You might die WITH covid. If you're obese with other comorbidities, all bets are off on surviving regardless of Vitamin D level.

The VA had been one of the leaders in designing tests to fail to show that nothing works against covid. The big one was giving HCQ with nothing else to patients already in the ICU or on ventilators, then announcing "HCQ is USELESS! Hear us- USELESS!" There have been several studies showing that Vitamin D is also useless- giving a one time dose of 70,000 or 100,000 IU after the patient was already in the ICU. Well, duh- that's not how it works. Your immune system is already overwhelmed at that point. Probably close to none of a massive dose gets absorbed in a body already sick. I think the VA did one of those studies also. And that is why I'm surprised they had a study showing high serum concentration reduced death rates.; 4/23/22, 12:34 AM
jrapdx said...: Can't argue that COVID data has been spun out in exactly easy to digest forms, far from it. It's true that in general differences between COVID outcomes between adequate and low Vit D levels has been substantial. Mostly though published studies compare D levels in the low-moderate range, that is, between deficiency and sufficiency (<20 vs > 30ng/ml). Haven't seen much documenting higher D levels (say >40ng/ml) and COVID. It would be interesting for sure to see that studied more intensively but it's a low priority vs. the far more ubiquitous (world-wide) problems with deficient D levels.

I've had long interest in the effects, benefits and hazards of Vit D. It's been a controversial subject for a great many years. Despite its discovery ~100 years ago and tons of investigation, no consensus has ever been reached on optimum blood level to recommend. Various research suggests 30, 50, 75ng/ml, but no one seems to know for sure.

Anyway, for the most part it seems probable that 50-60ng/ml is safe enough. Though I have known cases where >90 was producing toxic effects, so it is possible to overdo it.; 4/23/22, 2:43 AM
gadfly said...: Lurker21 said...
I turned on the radio this morning and was excited that Congress was finally talking about using the 25th Amendment to get rid of incompetent Biden.

But it turned out it was a tape from last year about getting rid of Trump two weeks or so before his term ended, because of some January 6th thing. Major disappointment.

Rick Scott, the septuagenarian Senator from Florida is pumping the media about kicking Biden out but it takes a 2/3 majority in both the House and Senate to make that happen so fuggedaboutit. Note: In 2018, a group boasting more than 188,000 retired Floridian voters called on Gov. Rick Scott to quit suggesting Sen. Bill Nelson‘s age (75 at that time) made him unfit for office.

Indeed it was a major disappointment that the Republican Senators refused to listen to the impeachment cases against TFG to rid us of the most dishonest president ever on two occasions. Lurk, you should listen to the radio more often if you don't know what the January 6 putsch thingy is.; 4/23/22, 3:43 AM
Humperdink said...: gadfy uttered: "Lurk, you should listen to the radio more often if you don't know what the January 6 putsch thingy is."

In the search for the truth, the Commie-Pinko dems kicked the R's off Jan 6 committee and replaced them with Trump haters Lizzy Cheney and Adam Special K. Gadfly, you should study the history of the the term kangaroo court sometime. Or show trial. Or maybe request the release of the 14,000 hours of video of the weaponless insurrection.; 4/23/22, 4:53 AM
Money Manger said...: If you still own any AT&T stock (once upon a time just about everyone in America did), that was your money that was completely wasted in the CNN+ disaster. In fact T’s adventure into “content” has been a decades long criminal waste of your money. Management got paid well, of course. The whole mess, CNN included, has been spun off into a dog’s dinner known as Warner Media.; 4/23/22, 4:57 AM
Lurker21 said...: You should listen to the radio more if you actually think the former guy was the most dishonest president ever.; 4/23/22, 5:24 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Dr. Weevil,
VOR is the navigation system you are referring to.; 4/23/22, 5:26 AM
Lurker21 said...: Chris Wallace must be a fucking idiot.

Vanity blinds. And the higher you go, the more susceptible you are to it. If your dad was a star and your colleagues all think they are stars themselves, you might be putty in the hands of somebody who tells you they could make you a real star too. The promise of big money also does wonders soothing wounded vanity.; 4/23/22, 5:29 AM
farmgirl said...: Decorum.
Y’think??; 4/23/22, 6:03 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Wait a minute. Is Sussmann claiming that he had no relationship with the Clinton campaign at the same time the campaign is refusing to produce documents on the basis of their lawyer-client relationship with Sussmann?; 4/23/22, 8:41 AM
Gospace said...: jrapdx said...

Anyway, for the most part it seems probable that 50-60ng/ml is safe enough. Though I have known cases where >90 was producing toxic effects, so it is possible to overdo it.

Vitamin D toxicity is considered >100 ng/ml, though in some the symptoms can appear as low as 70 ng/ml. The symptoms of Vitamin D toxicity at lower levels disappear with adequate Vitamin K supplementation. Seems when Vitamin D is doing it's job- it uses up Vitamin K. And if you have a sufficient amount of Vitamin D- the body uses it. A lot of things need to be kept in balance if you're taking supplements. Too much zinc drives out copper- which you need. Too much copper drives out zinc, which you need. And overdose of any metal is bad. Particularly iron, which you need. But most people get enough iron through food. Iron anemia in children, a common problem in the early 1900s, just about disappeared when iron enriched flour was introduced and mandated. If you have hemochromatosis this is a bad thing. Hard to find safe foods...- Oh- if your doctor prescribes iron supplements- keep them out of reach of infants and young children. Iron poisoning is one of the most common calls to the Poison Control Center.; 4/23/22, 11:11 AM