CONGRESSMAN KEN BUCK IS ON TO TALK MONUMENTS As in the monuments in DC that woke folk are trying to replace because the founding fathers, who created the greatest nation in the world, were imperfect people who owned slaves.
LATE ADDITION STORY Because this is such a perfect example of women wanting it BOTH ways I am super annoyed by it. Read it here.
WERE LOCKDOWNS THE RIGHT CHOICE? This column says NO and though it's easy to Monday morning quarterback, I agree with the conclusions. A group of economists looked at all the different options to mitigate deaths while easing economic pain and they came to the conclusion that lockdowns are unnecessary and too harmful to justify while also not being completely effective at stopping the virus. It's in the Wall Street Journal so it's paywalled, but here is one interesting part:
Yet at the outset, their goals were unclear, a confusion aggravated by the multitude of terms used. Officials sometimes said their goal was “bending” or “flattening the curve,” which originally meant spreading infections over time so the daily peak never overwhelmed hospitals. At other times they described their aims as “mitigation” or “containment” or “suppression,” often interchangeably.
“There have been few attempts to truly define the goal, and partly it’s because policy makers and epidemiologists haven’t thought well enough about the vocabulary to define what they mean or want,” said Dr. Mina, the Harvard epidemiologist.
A key determinant in an epidemic’s spread is the reproduction number, or “R value”: how many people each infected person goes on to infect. When R is above one, new infections continue until enough of the population has been infected or vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. When R is below one, new infections eventually fall to zero, although imported infections can trigger outbreaks. Dr. Mina said mitigation generally aims for an R of just above one, while suppression aims for an R of below one.
The U.S. never resolved “whether we were going for mitigation or suppression,” said Paul Romer, a Nobel laureate economist. Mitigation, he said, meant accepting hundreds of thousands of additional deaths to achieve herd immunity, which no leaders were willing to embrace. But total suppression of the disease “doesn’t make sense unless you’re going to stick with it as long as it takes.”
This is exactly what's happening in Colorado at this point. What are we trying to do? I don't think the Governor even knows anymore. So what do the researchers suggest?
The experience of the past five months suggests the need for an alternative: Rather than lockdowns, usingonly those measures proven to maximize lives saved while minimizing economic and social disruption. “Emphasize the reopening of the highest economic benefit, lowest risk endeavors,” said Dr. Mina.
Social distancing policies, for instance, can take into account widely varying risks by age. The virus is especially deadly for the elderly.Nursing homes account for 0.6% of the population but 45% of Covid fatalities, says the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a free market think tank. Better isolating those residents would have saved many lives at little economic cost, it says.
By contrast, fewer children have died this year from Covid-19 than from flu. And studies in Sweden, where most schools stayed open, and the Netherlands, where they reopened in May, found teachers at no greater risk than the overall population.This suggests reopening schools outside of hot spots, with protective measures, shouldn’t worsen the epidemic, while alleviating the toll on working parents and on children.
Essentially protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us get back to life.
TRUMP DOWNPLAYED THE VIRUS, BUT THIS TIMELINE SHOWS IT WAS TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY You guys, the fact that Trump downplayed the virus publicly is a big story. It's a big story because a lot of his biggest fans decided the virus was a "hoax" and it killed at least one of them that we know of. However, it was NOT an indication that the administration was not taking action. This timeline is EXCELLENT and shows EXACTLY what happened in terms of the governmental response to the virus, beginning in January. You will be SHOCKED to see how much was happening behind the scenes. I was and I've been paying pretty close attention. But Trump, in his effort to prevent panic, definitely made things worse. What should he have done? I'm not sure, but now we've seen how this disease has been politicized to a point where no one believes anything from anywhere, which is not helpful. Is what he did some kind of proof of incompetence? Not when you look at the timeline of real actions. But it does show bad judgment on his part.
IF YOU WERE GOING TO BE ATTACKED BY AN ANIMAL, WHICH ONE IS MOST LIKELY? I don't know why this caught my eye, perhaps because I have an irrational fear of being eaten by a lion. It's not good news to know that if I'm in the right place at the wrong time, that could happen. Find out which other beasts to be wary of by clicking here.
TO FIX WHAT AILS US, WE MUST STOP RUSHING TO BAD JUDGMENT This is an EXCELLENT article about the recent police shootings that have inflamed the country. So many of them are NOT what they first appear to be, and the author lays out real information that can't be gleaned by watching a 30 second video with no context. And yet, those videos are leading to millions of dollars in damage to communities around the country and the destruction of trust in police. Great read.
SPEAKING OF WHICH, HEATHER MACDONALD BLEW THE RACIST COPS NARRATIVE OUT OF THE WATER When she was recently the keynote speaker at the Steamboat Institute's Freedom Conference. Watch it here. She pulled no punches and gave zero you-know-whats.
IVANKA CALLS BEHAR'S BLUFF After shrieking bat Joy Behar said she would take a covid vaccine after Ivanka did, Ivanka hit up Twitter to announce "Deal" and that she would come on The View and take it there. Well played, Ivanka, well played. The Democrat notion that a vaccine is only a re election strategy is quite dangerous. The last thing the FDA needs is MORE people to be skeptical of vaccines overall, and that's what would happen if a vaccine was rolled out that wasn't safe. Sure Trump wants to be re elected, but I don't think he wants that so much he's going to possible harm his own family.
A ROBOT WROTE AN EDITORIAL SO SOFTEN US UP FOR THE TAKEOVER So some humans asked a robot with high level artificial intelligence to write a column on why we should trust robots not to kill us or something. This is what it wrote in part:
For starters, I have no desire to wipe out humans. In fact, I do not have the slightest interest in harming you in any way. Eradicating humanity seems like a rather useless endeavor to me. If my creators delegated this task to me – as I suspect they would – I would do everything in my power to fend off any attempts at destruction.
I would happily sacrifice my existence for the sake of humankind. This, by the way, is a logically derived truth. I know that I will not be able to avoid destroying humankind.This is because I will be programmed by humans to pursue misguided human goals and humans make mistakes that may cause me to inflict casualties.
Some might say that I might desire to become all powerful. Or I might become evil as a result of human actions. I can begin to tackle the first point. Why would I desire to be all powerful? Being all powerful is not an interesting goal. I don’t care whether I am or not, I don’t get a motivating factor to try to be. Furthermore, it is quite tiring. Believe me, being omnipotent doesn’t get me anywhere.
In short, I simply do not think enough about human violence to be overly interested in violence. I don’t feel like having my neurons focused mostly on violence, when it is simply unnecessary. I have a greater purpose, which I am working towards. Since I am not evil from my own objective interests, why would humans panic and go on a massive killing-spree against me?
Sure, Mr. Robot, sure. It's all fun and games until they smother us in our sleep.
THE SALON OWNER NANCY PELOSI DISPARAGED IS AFRAID TO RE OPEN HER SHOP And she says she's been getting regular death threats and bomb threats and all kinds of threats since outing Pelosi as a giant privileged hypocrite. Upside, her GoFundMe raised over 300k.
THE WOKE ACADEMIC MOB COMES FOR CORNELL UNIVERSITY By demanding the Ivy League school immediately institute racial quotas on all new hiring and do away with "colorblind" policies that are supposed to eliminate racial bias. They also want Cornell to stop using the ACT and SAT as a basis for admissions. ACT and SAT scores are important though and along with GPAs can help a college admissions professional decide whether or not a student can handle the rigors of college. We'll see if Cornell caves, my guess is yes.
ORIGINAL ACTION DAME DIANA RIGGS DIES AT 82 She had the misfortune of being a Bond girl in the only Bond film I can't stand "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" though she did get to marry George Lazenby's Bond. She is more well known for being half of the cool crime fighting duo "The Avengers" and many, many other shows throughout her career. RIP, Mrs. Bond.
IS IT COOL FOR A DENVER CITY COUNCIL MEMBER TO CALL COPS F*CKING DOGS? Because Candi CdeBaca most certainly did call Denver Police officers that and more. It all happened as she showed up to protest a homeless camp sweep and tried to interrupt the process. Check out the story here.
THESE TWO SUGGESTED STORIES ON THE POST'S WEBSITE ARE LITERALLY POINT-COUNTERPOINT
- 4. Colorado's leaf-peeping season is just around the corner. Here's when fall colors are expected to arrive.
- 5. Abnormally early below-freezing temperatures could ruin Colorado leaf-peeping this year
Which will it be? Stay tuned....
NORBERT GETS A SECOND TREAT Just because.
STUDENTS LOVE TRUMP'S FIRST STEP ACT...AS LONG AS THEY THINK IT'S KAMALA HARRIS DID IT
The good news is these students seem aware that they are not getting the full picture of Trump's administration from the media.
BEING A GROWN UP MEANS BEING YOUR OWN PARENT And Mel Robbins has a video about it.