No Excuses

16 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

https://scholar.harvard.edu/ericfeiglding/bio
 

This bio on Harvard’s site says he has a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard after graduating from JHU.    Is this a lie? 
 

How would a layman like me know?  I don’t want to post things from non experts.  It’s not like I’m quoting Dr. Oz here.  
 

https://undark.org/2020/11/25/complicated-rise-of-eric-feigl-ding

1 hour ago, Ball Security said:

Other epidemiologists question whether the vaccines alone are preventing infections or if it’s a combination of the vaccines with others wearing masks.  They are hesitant about the CDC’s guidance.

Eric Feigl-Ding is not an epidemiologist. He’s a clout chaser, who has a background in nutrition and somehow spun a loose connection with Harvard into convincing people he’s an expert in virology. 
 

He’s pretty much the Alex Berenson of left wing COVID fear porn.

It’s time

Bitcoin tanking on a day when there’s data released on greater-than-expected inflation is pretty funny. 

7 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

You wouldn’t expect high consumer demand during high unemployment.  It’s the combination that is weird.

Why? Considering two things:  

1. We are coming out of a pandemic, during which consumption went down, leading to pent up demand upon reopening.

2. Quite a generous expansion of UI benefits, that kept most people without jobs afloat (poverty actually going down following UI benefit expansions). 

There’s a supply crunch in many commodity areas and a demand boom with reopenings. Why are people surprised that consumer prices are going up? 

54 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I think it depends on how crowded your outdoor area is.  

Yup, generally was a good idea to mask outdoors if someone was talking, singing, shouting etc in close proximity for a prolonged time. But going for a walk in the park, etc, we knew by Fall was safe. 
 

Even less need to worry now outdoors if you’re vaccinated. Talk, sing, dance do whatever. The unvaccinated want to roll the dice for death or Long COVID, more power to them. But I’ve resumed life back to normal, indoors and outdoors. 

2 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

This is my issue with declaring that fully vaccinated people can go maskless in public: the anti-vaxxers don't wear masks now unless forced to so they can shop. So how are us fully vaccinated people able to rely on every maskless person they encounter is also fully vaccinated?

Outdoor mask wearing was unnecessary even when people weren’t vaccinated. You won’t be catching COVID from people in ventilated, open outdoor spaces. 

17 hours ago, China said:

U.S. backs waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines, citing global health crisis

 

Click on the link for the full article

File this under policy actions that accomplish nothing. This is virtue signaling by the administration with negligible impact on global vaccine distribution. The choke point to vaccine production is supply chains and manufacturing capacity.

27 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

I signed up for MLB.TV last year as I was out of market for the Orioles,  little did I know there's apparently some automatically renewal and they dropped a nice fat $100 charge just before the season begin, which I got zero notification for and only noticed on my statment. 

 

I did just recently get it reverted, however its a pain to think I have to constantly check my statements and remember everything I every signed up for. 

 

Then there's this $20 renters insurance payment I paid like a few extra months for because it was difficult to cancel. 

 

I would sooner just be able to verify every payment through my cell phone and be done with it.   I would setup a small crypto account and pay out of that, and occassionally transfer money into it from my bank.  

 

 

Forgetting to cancel your subscriptions on time is not an indictment of the existing financial system. Plus, this is super easy to reverse. I’ve done it like four times already this year and spent no more than 5 minutes total. Lol

1 hour ago, DCSaints_fan said:

And then another advantage is control.  With an ordinary bank account, you don't really control it.  Give out your CC # and someone can charge whatever they want on your account, sometimes months later and without your consent.  But with blockchain, unless you give up your private keys, you have full control over what happens, so this is impossible

The downside is that if you lose your keys, or god forbid, fall for a scam, you’re straight out of luck with cryptocurrencies.
 

Banks in the US offer a layer of protection through reversibility of transactions.
 

The security side of cryptocurrencies isn’t really solving a pressing issue in US finance. I can see the upside for people in developing and authoritarian nations, where confiscation of financial assets by corrupt leaders/institutions is an issue, but it’s not a relevant issue in developed nations.

Doge outperforming Bitcoin over its existence is pretty great. An inflationary coin, that everyone knows has no use case, has been a much better store of value than BTC.

1 hour ago, Hersh said:

what I don’t really understand is, is there nothing that did that already? I really gotta spend some time looking up examples cause I don’t understand enough 

At its core, decentralized blockchains real value is basically a secure database that can’t be altered by one entity. 
 

It’s a pretty boring technology but people are trying to will it into existence as something really cool. Legitimately it’s most practical use case is non-fungible and transparent public records to prevent government and institutional corruption. 

2 hours ago, Dan T. said:

So the Wall-Westbrook trade isn't quite the disaster it appeared to be earlier in the season.

Westbrook was always better than Wall, always will be. I feel like the negativity had more to do with fan attachment.

Westbrook is insane. All time great.

The case for Ethereum maximalism. I think I’ve shared this before but worth reading for those who haven’t:

https://elidourado.com/blog/case-for-ethereum-maximalism/
 

I honestly don’t care for Bitcoin at all. My crypto play money is 90-10 ETH-BTC. 

Another good one published today, examining if the comparisons to FDR are justified:

@tshile

Two of their recent pieces worth reading:

Changes to the corporate and capital gains tax rates

They also argued that the stimulus package was too big

I think the only place where you may find thoughtful analysis from a center-right perspective is the Economist. Although if you read it (or listen to it) weekly, you may come across as thinking that it’s a liberal magazine these days, but that’s more of a reflection of how far to the right American conservatism has swung. 

It’s amazing the policy stuff you can accomplish and talk about when you just ignore the opinions of psychotic deficit hawks.

Also ****ing lol,

11 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Thanks.  I just find it weird that Turkey is so up in arms about it.  A bad thing happened over 100 years ago and was done by people who are all dead.  Nobody is calling for any action on the part of Turkey, it's just a recognition that something bad happened a long time ago.  I dunno, I guess I'll try to find something to read on it.  

There’s nothing more to it than brain rot nationalism. Turks think that Armenians betrayed the Ottoman Empire and were a major source for its downfall. Admitting that they treated Armenian’s living in the Ottoman Empire badly and then committed genocide against them punctures the narrative that Armenians are the real baddies who caused the downfall of ancient Turkic glory. 

5 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Does anyone have any particular insight on the "Biden recognizes Armenian genocide" thing?  Is this just to **** with Erdogan for being inappropriately cozy with Trump?  Does it have anything to do with the brawls at the Turkish embassy a few years back?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clashes_at_the_Turkish_Ambassador's_Residence_in_Washington,_D.C.

 

 

It’s probably a combination of many things including Erdogan cozying up to Putin and Xi, Turkey just being a bad ally all around, the ironically strong Armenian American lobby led by Kim Kardashian and just doing the right thing. 
 

Acceptance of this genocide is such a sore point for Turkey that they built a monument in the country counter accusing Armenians baselessly of committing genocide against Turks. 

You know there’s some attention whore out there googling “how to access enriched uranium” for their little ****s gender reveal party. 

There is no reasonable argument for merging DC to MD/VA besides engaging in centrism theater. 

Just now, redskinss said:

Wouldn't this lead to North and South Montana the next time Republicans are in power?

Wouldn’t be the first time they carved up what could have been one state, into multiple, for their own electoral benefits. 

Any chance this puts even a little bit of fear into cops before they think about manhandling people and going on homicidal power trips again? 

On 4/16/2021 at 7:00 PM, Hersh said:

Bitcoin needs to switch to proof of stake in the next couple years because the negative environmental impact of crypto cannot be understated. The is going to be a major roadblock to more growth. 

I'm pretty sure Bitcoin can never transition to proof of stake.

The environmental impact stuff is quite overblown in my opinion. The entire world has an immediate need to de-carbonize all of the power grid and singling out specific technologies and sectors isn't going to do much to help that transition.

Epstein didn’t commit suicide?