Friday Ephemera
Like apple bobbing. || Modern problems, a possible series. || Limited edition of note. (h/t, STG) || Daddy-daughter time. || Dad moves deployed. || Maximum style points. || Meet the neighbours. || Snowball fights in art. || Life skills. || Flag mystery. || A lot can happen in a minute. || At last, a mushroom colour chart. || Size matters. || Sounds from around the world. (h/t, Things) || A guide to San Francisco’s street faeces. || Heh. || Not unlike eyes. || Butterflies. || He does this better than you would. || It almost sounds like a woke prayer, which I suppose it sort of is. || Why woke comics don’t sell. || Target lock acquired. || Today’s word is trajectory. || And finally, festively, via Damian, ‘tis the season of good cheer.
I hope that doesn’t mean you’re still not fully recovered, David.
Feeling warm and adorable. Oddly enough.
bottle of 12 year old El Dorado
Good call! One of my favourite rums. It’s a Beefeater martini for me today.
…Forest Lawn (the original, in Glendale, CA … the placed mocked by Evelyn Waugh in The Loved One)
Oh lay me down in Forest Lawn
[ Slurps indecently large gin and tonic. ]
[ Quietly slips WCTU pamphlet across the bar. Glances significantly at large crate by the door, perfect for any bottles one might wish to discard. ]
[ Sees that crate is still empty. Glumly contemplates cost of buying enough rum for Christmas fruitcake baking. ]
Jordan Peterson: Why I Love Great Britain. Also, video here.
Updated gender chart, please update yours accordingly.
WCTU
Little White Ribboners: 0 – 5 years
Children: 6 -12 years
A pledge of total abstinence is to be signed and annual dues paid.
Pledge
“I promise, with God’s help, to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and all other harmful drugs.”
I wonder what the annual dues for Little White Ribboners are – and can they charge their credit cards?
While not written by Sir Pterry himself,LSpace’s Annotated Pratchett File is a cornucopia of information about allusions in his books, collated by the good folk of alt.fan.pratchett.
@TomJ
Thanks for that link – perhaps a mite too anal-ytical…
“I promise, with God’s help, to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and all other harmful drugs.”
It appears that the WCTU and White Ribbon ignore those medical studies which show that, in moderate amounts, alcohol is beneficial. That is at odds with the WCTU’s historical view:
“Its members were inspired by the Greek writer Xenophon, who defined temperance as “moderation in all things healthful; total abstinence from all things harmful.” In other words, should something be good, it should not be indulged in to excess; should something be bad for you, it should be avoided altogether — thus their attempts to rid society of what they saw (and still see) as the dangers of alcohol.”
LSpace’s Annotated Pratchett File is a cornucopia of information about allusions in his books
It is indeed, although I don’t believe it contains anything about real-world absurd funeral rites.
Thanks for that link – perhaps a mite too anal-ytical…
Or not enough? I’ve noticed what may be a few gaps in the discussions of various characters. (But where does one go to put forward such a thought if one is uncertain of its validity?)
It’s not my fault that I did something stupid.
I wonder if they will call themselves comradx, as “trans” activists plan to lead the communist revolution, tovarichx.
The discussion lead is a part time instructor at the The NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study in which you can take academically rigorous courses such as “The Thingliness of Things.”.
However, I digress, this insight was offered in the discussion:
Oswald Bates couldn’t have said it better.
Somehow I don’t see these four on the barricades. They just don’t make commies like they used to.
A public service message in this time of holiday-related purchases.
“I promise, with God’s help, to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and all other harmful drugs.”
Political power being the most harmful drug of them all.
I think the “counterfeit Chinese liquid ass” needs some of this.
I think the “counterfeit Chinese liquid ass” needs some of this.
David probably still has some in the basement cooler.
I think the “counterfeit Chinese liquid ass” needs some of this.
I happened to be scrolling past this just as SWMBO asked what we should have for dinner tonight.
She was not amused.
I think she wishes I could just be into sports like most normal middle aged imbeciles.
Updated gender chart, please update yours accordingly.
From that same Twitter channel: “Looks like the crime rate in the Shire is about to skyrocket”
–which references this news item: “The Harfoots [Hobbits] are also made up of a variety of other people from different backgrounds, Henry said. “So there are Black and Asian and Brown and even Maori-types within it…One of the commonly cited issues with Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings series from the early 2000s is its lack of diversity.”
The imbecile dishonesty of trying to transform the Shire, a European setting based on the culture of rural England, into some sort of pan-racial, pan-cultural, global hodgepodge, deserves a little mockery. (Time for more jokes about Amazon looking to peddle elf-dwarf-goblin-orgy porn?)
“The jurors all agreed he was guilty. Some of them refused to convict him simply because he was black.”
Much the way we forgave our dog for killing a chicken. He can’t help it, he’s a dog. It’s his nature to kill chickens.
Anyway, moral responsibility was created by white men to oppress people of color. Thankfully, we have Chesa Boudin as the enlightened white man to show The Way in ‘reimagining’ justice.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED that masking should be forever.
The glorious train wreck.
Funny and well done, but shouldn’t do that. Think of all the 911 calls.
Rudolph wasn’t going to play any damn reindeer games.
you can take academically rigorous courses such as “The Thingliness of Things.”
That’d be a fun name for an ontology course, but somehow I doubt that’s what’s on offer.
The imbecile dishonesty of trying to transform the Shire
I haven’t yet figured out if these people don’t know that, prior to the invention of modern methods of transportation, inland rural communities tended to be relatively genetically uniform for the blindingly obvious reasons, or if they know and don’t care when it makes everyone who does twitch on seeing a medieval-esque village full of people with wildly different genetic lineages. Ironically, one of the only ways you’d get that would be if there were some strong taboo on intermarriage between those races. I believe Reich’s excellent book on archeogenetics, Who We Are and How We Got Here discussed a system of lineage-clans in India that had been maintained so thoroughly down to the modern day that people whose families had lived on opposite sides of a street for generations turned out to be less closely related than a Swede to a Nigerian.
Much the way we forgave our dog for killing a chicken. He can’t help it, he’s a dog. It’s his nature to kill chickens.
The traditional attitude of farmers is not that forgiving, I hear, based on reading All Creatures Great and Small.
I haven’t yet figured out if these people don’t know…or if they know and don’t care…
Probably both, considering how badly the left has corrupted our educational system.
Reich’s excellent book on archeogenetics, Who We Are and How We Got Here…
One of the pleasures of this blog is occasional citations of interesting books.
* France remains culturally very French.
* they know and don’t care when it makes everyone who does twitch on seeing a medieval-esque village full of people with wildly different genetic lineages.
There was a three hour TV debate the other night where a dozen panelists lined up to interrogate Eric Zemmour, the presidential candidate whose status as a supposed media controversialist is based on saying things that French people a generation ago would have seen too obvious to say out loud because we’re all sophisticated and French and we implicitly understand these things better than other nationalities – men are different from women, the French nation should be run according to the interests and sensibilities of the French people – banalities that are now raciste and sexiste.
The actor Matthieu Kassowitz told Zemmour that France has always been a nation of mutts. Ok, he said metis, which has its own nuances. But that’s really an American kind of thing to say, sometimes as icebreaking self-mockery when comparing family trees with Europeans, and sometimes as an invidious way of demeaning and erasing the specific British protestant roots of the United States. Kassowitz, as the son of a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, might find it better for his ego, less of an imposition on his gratitude, if the French nation was Rick’s Bar. But as Zemmour said after one of the panelists gave a sermon about the moral values of France being based on Acceptance and Tolerance – France isn’t a McDonalds, you can’t just turn up as you are.
Another of the panelists, Karim Zeribi, deployed the line that Zemmour was nostalgic for a Christian monocultural France, a past that never existed. Not a college guy, so it’s not an intellectual provocation he picked up in a seminar. A working class guy, distinct regional accent, went to work on the railways after an injury in his early 20’s ended his professional soccer career, and got into left wing politics via his union. Proud of his Muslim identity, to which he doesn’t apply the “a culture which never existed” analysis. Strangely made a particular point of calling Avignon, his home town, the city of popes: a celebration parallax where on the one hand he can dismiss France’s distinct Christian history and identity with a thought-terminating slogan, and on the other hand he can reinvoke that history when he’s taking pride at being a Muslim who’s living in a space that was formerly so Christian. What is that pride: you’re not normally proud of being a resident, you’re not normally proud of being a blow-in, maybe he’s proud of being an assimilated Frenchman (assimilating to a history which never existed), but I suspect also the pride of a triumphant invader where offending the sensibilities of the historical population is a policy and a perk.
…the French nation should be run according to the interests and sensibilities of the French people…
As indeed it should. It would be a tragedy and catastrophe for France to cease to be French.
but I suspect also the pride of a triumphant invader where offending the sensibilities of the historical population is a policy and a perk.
Especially this. I hope that Eric Zemmour’s growing popularity is a sign that immigrants will soon be expected to assimilate or get out ASAP.
Its members were inspired by the Greek writer Xenophon…
I would prefer they march towards Persia.
Man Mistaken For Redhead Complains Of Being Misgingered.
British prejudice against red-heads still puzzles me, and I wonder why it either did not cross the Atlantic to the Colonies or else why it did cross but died out. Raw speculation: The demographics of the Colonials included many red-heads and persons from regions where red hair was common.
Oh dammit, I screwed up the above link. Correct link: Man Mistaken For Redhead Complains Of Being Misgingered.
Oh dammit, I screwed up the above link.
We warned you about demon rum. We warned you.
Multi-racial hobbits doesn’t even make sense (oh, I know, the woke never do). In the LOTR the hobbits are a race: short, hairy feet, modeled after the Irish. They are not a culture. Same with the elves. A separate race, almost species. Wokeness is an illness. They complained that the movie Dunkirk was all white–but you can’t have a realistic historical movie and throw in black people like flavoring, it screws up the historicity.
The trans are going to lead the communist revolution? hahahah oh boy. First of all, communists tend to execute such people. Second, they are too busy posing and doing their makeup to fight. Third, if they don’t get their way do they think they can keep pushing and demanding when the country is communist? ahahahhah Communists demand obedience, not protests.
English issue with redheads is their issue with the Irish.
Multi-racial hobbits doesn’t even make sense (oh, I know, the woke never do). In the LOTR the hobbits are a race
Tolkien did have three varieties of hobbits, but the differences do not justify what these woke fanatics are doing.
Quote:
“Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger; and they preferred flat lands and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.”
–The Lord of the Rings
Oh damn. I forgot to change my name back from WCTU to pst314.
English issue with redheads is their issue with the Irish.
Merely that? From what I’ve read this prejudice goes back to the Middle Ages, which led me to surmise that the English attitude cannot be simply attributed to “the Irish troubles”. And aren’t some Scots red-headed too?
Truth.
pst314: if you read about Saint Patrick, in about 600AD he wrote to the English church protesting the taking of Irish slaves, since both countries were now Christian. He said they were brothers and should not be enslaved. During american colonial days (ie 1700s), the English still took Irish on their ships (pressed into service–still slavery).
Truth.
Marx probably owes money to everyone at the table, which is the true reason he’s the center of attention.
Castro looks like he’s sending Che to bed. Poor Che has a skull in his place when, in truth, the whole table should be upheld by an enormous pile of skulls.
In the interest of open thread…I have a question that has been burning in my mind for a few months now…Are my wife and I the only two people on the planet who have never been tested for Covid? Not tested positive. I mean not tested at all. Had no (or very little except long after the fact) reason to be tested. Has anyone heard of others like us?
Are my wife and I the only two people on the planet who have never been tested for Covid?
Nope. No one in my family has been tested.
Never been tested – strongly intend to keep it that way. I’m not going to put my life on hold because some dipshits in lab coats insist on running a PCR for 30+ cycles.
My wife, daughters, and I haven’t been tested either.
In the LOTR the hobbits are a race: short, hairy feet, modeled after the Irish.
Not so. Rural English midlands/Worcestershire, mostly
From what I’ve read this prejudice goes back to the Middle Ages
I have always thought of it as a relatively recent thing, intended to be mostly humorous but, as always in the hands of teenagers, often cruel.
The glorious train wreck
Excellent – thanks for that link!
The chef responds. Mostly with pictures of horses. Some of the pictures are less good than the others. The “chef” does not seem to know this.
English issue with redheads is their issue with the Irish.
As with the Scots redheads, it may well go back even further into pre-history as a speciesist thing. Apparently redheadedness comes from the Neanderthals with whom we share from interbreeding about 2% of our DNA. Maybe the Celts, being older occupants of ther British Isles, are just a bit more Neanderthalish which brings out more reheadedness than the rest of us.
I have always thought of it as a relatively recent thing
So had I, but once again there were things I did not know.
pst314: if you read about Saint Patrick, in about 600AD he wrote to the English church protesting the taking of Irish slaves…
Yes, but did the English justify this by making the Irish less than human? In a way distinct from how all other slavers justified what they did?
Covid testing
No, neither my wife nor me.
there were things I did not know
All that, I think, strengthens my hypothesis that it is based on anti-Neanderthalism. What if they were NOCs as well…
“The false positive rate goes up logarithmically with cycle count so it’s not easy to estimate without more data points, but at a cycle count of 36 it’s somewhere between 50% and 93%.”
Do you have a link to a layman’s explanation of this? I’ve been trying to get a good handle on false positives for 20 months and our journalist class hasn’t delivered.
Sonny,
Try this short video – for some reason, though, it doesn’t work in all browsers.
“Try this short video ”
Perhaps it’s just me, but that video (which is quite accurate, btw), seems to disappear from time to time, and can be difficult to find. Odd, that is.
Also aside – wound up with some stitches (long story…), so hospital tested – 50 cycle test. They seemed upset at the negative result. Said injury has left me reading and watching the telescreen far, far more than usual, and I’m surprised that you whiteish folk have all seemed to have vanished from recent shows/adverts. Where did you go?
, Maybe the Celts, being older occupants of the British Isles, are just a bit more Neanderthalish . . . than the rest of us.
*glares*
*glares even harder*
Maybe the Celts, being older occupants of the British Isles, are just a bit more Neanderthalish . . . than the rest of us.
Actually neither Britain nor Ireland were inhabited during the last ice age- long after the the neanderthals had been absorbed or eliminated by whatever peoples existed then
…so hospital tested – 50 cycle test. They seemed upset at the negative result.
50 cycles is totally absurd, but at least it reported the cycles. What has been extremely annoying and stupid is the disconnect between clinical presentation and the coof test reports sans cycles reported.
One of the fundamental failures in the management of this mess is calling a “positive” PCR a “case” automatically – 6 cycles and symptoms, OK; symptoms and 40 cycles, probably not unless you have antibodies, it is not as if the symptoms are nigh the same as most respiratory vira; 50 and no symptoms, just plain no.
probably not unless you have antibodies
AIUI, per my own doctor, the antibody tests suck as well. Which would explain why OneBlood and the Red Cross stopped doing them with blood donations. The “results” probably raised way too many questions as the data set got larger and larger. I don’t know which amuses me more, that these tests are exposing, to some degree, how little about this insanity is actually knowable or that the idiots in charge of this insanity did not see this sort of thing coming. But then again, they are idiots. They’re just too stupid to know it. And the rest of us are stupid enough to willingly (for the most part) participate in their psychosis.
“It is right that this wrong should be righted, that these people who were criminalised, mostly women, should be pardoned [ … ] by righting this wrong it can have an impact in challenging gendered and patriarchal attitudes in society.”
The Scottish Parliament has agreed to posthumously pardon witches burnt at the stake between the 16th and 18th centuries.
I mean, you get to parliament, you have a few drinks at the subsidised bar, you think, ‘Hey, why not?’.
…per my own doctor, the antibody tests suck as well.
Depends on two things, timing, and whether the test is just looking at IgG, or IgA, and IgM as well. Peak levels for all are at around 15 days, but IgG can be seen around 4.
“…by righting this wrong it can have an impact in challenging gendered and patriarchal attitudes in society.”
Wasting publicly funded time with fatuous vanity projects, which is, after all, what’s happening, should also carry a penalty, I think. Public burning may be a tad too harsh. But stocks and pelted fruit… that, I could go with.
In my county outside Chicago, there are 1 million people. In july & august 0 deaths for 2 months. Since then average 1 death per day. Local hospital flat low level of ICU use for people WITH covid (plus other things probably). This is all based on cases rather than deaths. Based on deaths the epidemic is over. You notice the media and politicos never mention deaths, only cases.
arghhhh
“the media and politicos never mention deaths, only cases.”
General reports seem to be of positive PCR tests, not actual cases. Can’t mandate with a lower number and all…
You notice the media and politicos never mention deaths, only cases.
General reports seem to be of positive PCR tests, not actual cases.
And those PCR tests are based on 50 cycles, I suppose. /eye roll
Are my wife and I the only two people on the planet who have never been tested for Covid?
None in my family AFAIK. #2 daughter and the boys presented classic symptoms last Christmas and were just told to quarantine for 2 weeks. When symptoms were gone, they just got back to life. When #1 was exposed to a patient she was transporting that the hospital said tested negative and that turned out wrong, she just quarantined at home until the window for developing symptoms passed. Never got it (as an RN, she had the vax prior to last Christmas and was exposed in January).
I’m wondering if this insistence on testing in certain areas “regularly” (someone I know with kids in school their kids have been tested every time someone in the school tests positive – sheesh) is driving the current panic pr0n over Omicron. People are testing positive that have no symptoms.
Do you have a link to a layman’s explanation of this
The very brief explanation is that there needs to be a certain amount of the virus present in the PCR test sample to be considered “positive”. This is a somewhat arbitrary level akin to “18 and 364 days, no alcohol for you; 19 and belly up to the open bar” but if you’re going to go with a pass/fail the bar has to be set somewhere.
PCR tests work by taking a sample from the allegedly-infected person and running the sample through a cycle of virus-growth-encouraging processes. Every cycle increases the amount of viral-infected material in the sample. The increase from one cycle to the next doesn’t go up linearly, though, because as more and more of the medium in the sample is infected there’s less and less uninfected material to get infected on the next cycle, so the plot of viral load over cycles looks like a logarithmic curve.
It should be obvious that if you run enough cycles you will eventually get a positive test unless you started with a completely sterile sample. The fact that the curve can only increase, and the fact that at only 18 cycles the Manitoba Department of Public Health already saw 50% false positives (compared to slow-culturing the virus samples in the lab) means that at 30, 40 or 50 cycles the false positive rate must be at least 50%. Depending on how steep that logarithm curve is it might be as high as 93%, but there’s no way to fit a logarithm curve with only one data point.
General reports seem to be of positive PCR tests
I’ve pointed out multiple times in other fora that if all they are giving you is case counts and not ICU admissions and deaths[1], then they’re lying to you and they know they’re lying.
[1] Even the intentionally inflated BS death counts
I’m surprised that you whiteish folk have all seemed to have vanished from recent shows/adverts. Where did you go?
The forced DIE stuff is rather obvious.
Speaking of forced … in California (yeah … I know) a law went into effect in October that large retailers have to stop “gendering” the floors in their stores devoted to products for kids. No more “girls toys” areas, etc.
I stopped by my local mall a few days ago because I wanted to round out the little grandkids’ gifts with some clothes. Now part of the issue of going to the stores is that they are hurting for staff … it makes it harder to find stuff when everything is strewn about and not stocked up. Even the Macy’s store was a horrorshow mess right when they opened.
BUT my time was wasted because many of the boys & girls departments are GONE. JC Penney now has this whole area called “Kids 4-22”. That’s it. And racks of mixed, mostly “gender neutral” clothing. Like WTH? Rowan (8 y/o) and Harper (5- but she wears a 7/8) are both very girly girls. If it sparkles and is pink, they want it. Tons of gray, green, brown, black … you’d think we’re supposed to dress our kids like little prison inmates. Even the plaids were muted.
I finally found some cute stuff and a nice BOYS shirt and jeans for Zander. But, holy moly, it took me twice as long.
Online, JC Penney still has “boys and girls” departments, but I want to throat punch the CA legislature that has taken to wanting Mao suits on the retail floors for kids.
On the “girls vs boys” depts thing: at Target and Kohl’s they now feature lots of plus size women in the big pictures over the clothing. This is particularly stupid when the clothing is sportswear and there are no women pictured who look like they do any activity at all.
They are ruining everything.
they now feature lots of plus size women in the big pictures over the clothing
In all fairness, this is just bringing the advertising in line with the reality rather than the other way around.
“lots of plus size women in the big pictures”
If anyone told me I’d miss the 70s and 80s…
Yikes.
if all they are giving you is case counts and not ICU admissions and deaths, then they’re lying to you and they know they’re lying.
A few cultist are a bit more sophisticated than that, instead citing the percentage of full ICU beds. All the while (1) knowing people don’t generally have a normal, baseline percentage from which to compare (ie the Black Friday Sale Effect) and (2) pretending not to remember they were demanding huge portions of said hospital staff be fired for not taking a jab.
Covid cures an Irishman of insanity
He’s been living under the delusion that he was a Korean.
But what led him to believe that he was a Korean? That he could decide whether he was a Korean or not and that the Koreans were doing him wrong by having their own opinion on the matter. Resident since 2013. When did he become a Korean according to his own criteria? 2015? 2019?
I don’t know about the Koreans. Are they significantly different from the Japanese who are are frank and expeditious about racially profiling foreigners? Unlike Westerners, who have to treat visible racial information like Enigma decodes that can’t be acted upon without a plausible alternative information source.
In eating places in Japan I was routinely given a knife and fork, as if I couldn’t handle chopsticks. As it happens, I can’t entirely comfortably handle chopsticks, but they didn’t know that. They just assumed, they stereotyped me. I’m entitled to be treated by the Japanese as Japanese until I decide to declare my foreignness. What right do the Japanese have to say I’m not Japanese?
No, I didn’t really think that, I’d just say arigato, recognizing that giving me my customary eating utensils was a thoughtful and practical display of cultural sensitivity; while enabling me in my hope or delusion that I can pass for one of them is not a moral obligation on the Japanese or on any other nation.
Inverted-quotes foreigner.
Firstly, Covid crisis or no Covid crisis, a nation has a right to prioritize its own people and to impose whatever ground rules it chooses on resident foreigners: if you don’t like it, leave.
Secondly, you can think that diversity is our strength,that no human is illegal, and that for every 30 foot wall there’s a 31 foot ladder, and you can also think that lockdowns and contact tracing are a good science and rational public policy, but you’d be better off keeping those two ideas separate. Foreign contacts, foreign habits as regards hygiene and physical contact, foreign languages making it more difficult to get educational messages out. It’s perfectly rational for the public health authorities to take those considerations into account.
“instead citing the percentage of full ICU beds.”
That one hits a bit close – I volunteer for a hospital system here in, well, you know. When I’m told that “we’re” out of beds I politely enquire of the teller as to which branch, floors, or affiliated unit.
Without fail, the response is “I saw/heard it on the newz”
In other words, “hospitals are overfull” is bull patties. Period. Full stop.
The other fun one is to hear that “thousands are dying every day in Texas” (yes, that’s an actual quote, btw). Based on what I’ve seen of the idiocy, I’ll give the West 5 generations before living in crumbling ruins is the norm.
ICU beds: 1) The gov has been insisting for years that hospitals cut costs by reducing the number of ICU beds. 2) ICU beds are not fixed. You can turn lots of rooms into ICU. 3) Some current limitations are because hospital staff got burned out and quit or were fired for not getting vaccinated.
So it is BS all the way down.
Scout leaders apologise to woman they hounded for two years after she ‘misgendered’ a transgender freak.
ICU beds are not fixed. You can turn lots of rooms into ICU.
Ditto ALL hospital beds. During the first wave of the CCP virus when everything “non-essential” was shut down, hospitals closed dozens of wards and laid-off doctors and nurses and support staff. If it wasn’t covid or some absolute emergency like a broken bone, then they didn’t let you in the doors.
One of the very few times in the experience of #1 daughter (CCT RN) and her paramedic husband that the waiting rooms of ERs were spookily empty.
But now it’s running in circles and screaming the sky is falling from the usual media and politicians about “overrun hospitals”.
Much the way we forgave our dog… He can’t help it, he’s a dog. It’s his nature…
Porch pirate.
You can turn lots of rooms into ICU
I did have one local hospital employee explain that it wasn’t a matter of being “out of physical beds”, it was that COVID required specific isolation protocols and equipment and specially trained nurses that were in limited supply, and “beds” was a simply a convenient shorthand for referring to COVID capacity.
Okay, fine, I said, but then why do they keep saying “ICU beds” like there’s no room for car crash and burn victims any more, and it’s been a ****ing year so why haven’t they been crash-converting hospital wings and cross-training the cosmetic surgery nurses, if this virus is so all-fired deadly?
A few cultist are a bit more sophisticated than that, instead citing the percentage of full ICU beds
That every schoolchild is not required to read How To Lie With Statistics in grade school is 1) a travesty and 2) telling.
That every schoolchild is not required to read How To Lie With Statistics in grade school is 1) a travesty and 2) telling.
Someone on my Hellsite (coughTwittercough) timeline posted that all high school students should be required to read Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics, which is a good idea, but I think you should not be allowed to run for public office without having read it and showing knowledge to prove you’ve done so.
Hey, I can dream, and maybe we’ll get a Christmas miracle!
I think you should not be allowed to run for public office without having read it and showing knowledge to prove you’ve done so
In the runup to the last federal election I offered anyone on my FB friends list who intended to vote Liberal/Green/NDP a free copy of Basic Economics with the proviso that they had to read all of it before voting day, and I would check. Not a one took me up on the offer.