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 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.