Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
Alan Fox,
2km? Not sure if that’s more or less absurd than once per day … there is a notion firmly rooted that viruses are possessed of some kind of magical power, and people need only pass in the street for their essence to leap from the one to the other. The value of exercise, fresh air and sunshine for physical and mental health – and immunity – may easily outweigh the (surely low) risk of transmission by extended perambulation. The nerd in me would like to see a proper study before I bought into the notion I’m being hectored into buying: that such abstinence is a vital part of the ‘war effort’.
I took the dog out this morning; I’m in fields after 100 yards and could probably go all day from there without contact. But now I’ve (technically) used my daily quota!
Dog walkers in Sheffield yesterday (visiting my kids, possibly for the last time in a while) were extravagantly stepping into the undergrowth to give us a 2 metre berth in the woods. I did similar for an elderly gentleman in the street and he said with a smile “was it something I said?”.
I guess the tendency is yo go for overkill. But at least Boris allowed his subjects out together if occupying the same household. We’re supposed to travel alone even by car, with a freshly completed paper “attestation” for each journey. I heard yesterday there were over 20,000 fines issued so far
Seen to be doing is the thing that matters. Peer pressure is helping, I think.
I visited “Peaceful Science” today.
Here’s what I saw:
Whatever your personal beliefs, we saved a chair for you.
Not my experience at PS.
Did they say that it was not the electric chair?
<It was reported today that Donald Trump reached out to Armando Christian Pérez, better known as the Rapper Pitbull to get some feedback on how to deal with the coronavirus. Trump was seeking Perez's thoughts on his response to the coronavirus, and had a “pleasant” conversation, per the report. Trump has had a tumultuous relationship with Perez, and has slammed him publicly multiple times in the past. He called Perez a “bad guy” in an Entertainment Tonight interview in 2013, and once predicted that Perez (Pitbull) “will go down as the biggest rap embarrassments of all time.*
*Oh, sorry, correction. It wasn’t Pitbull the rapper. It was Alex Rodriguez, the retired baseball player and boyfriend of Jennifer Lopez.
Photograph of the Duke of Wellington, 29 years after the battle of Waterloo against Napoleon, a few years after the first camera was made. Amazing!
Tara Connor, Miss USA with the eventual president of the USA.
It’s a bit like the beauty and the beast, but in the Disney movie the monster turned out to be nice.
stcordova,
And look, the Duke is not even grabbing some pageant contestant by the pussy.
stcordova,
I may be projecting, but she does not look to be having a good time.
Offering thoughts and well wishes across the pond from the USA to Prime Minister Boris for a speedy recovery.
Come to think of it, you may have a point.
This is her later after admitting to cocaine use. (Not that this has anything to do with anything except my fascination with scandals).
stcordova,
I hope that didn’t extend to the Donald! 😯
ETA missing quote
Number One! USA, USA, USA!
The infant said he would do great things. I guess this is what he meant Sal.
Well, then you definitely voted for the right person.
stcordova,
Cocaine use often has a strong correlation with having a good time.
A relative of mine works in MRI at a hospital in Virginia in the USA. He said to me that 50% of patients in his hospital are Covid patients in the hospital beds. The hospital is near an major city… Some cities in Viriginia are hit harder per capita than others.
Virginia has a population of 8 million or so, and about 18,000 licensed hospital beds. So maybe it could handle about 1 in 350 people getting really sick or whatever at a time. The problem however isn’t just number of beds, but medical staff if they get overwhelmed!
stcordova,
Don’t worry Sal, the pussy grabber is on the case! Thank goodness you have him, imagine how much worse it could be!
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC):
AOC waxes philosophical:
The picture that went viral suggesting Ivanka Trump was swooning over Justin Trudeau:
Melania Trump giving Justin Trudeau a diplomatic greeting:
In recent posts, Sal has indeed been making the case that he (i.e. Sal) would be even worse than Trump.
Neil Rickert,
I’d make the case that he’d be nearly equivalent.
The famous physicist Helmholtz delivered the Kant memorial lecture around 1850.
Starting page 157 or so this is the account of the lecture:
Link to Google Books
The of Helmholtz lecture was, “On Human Perception”. The author interjects his view that Helmholtz was subtly critical of Kant. I don’t know, but it was interesting.
This was Britannica’s take on Helmholtz:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hermann-von-Helmholtz
These two concepts are not in conflict and are both correct, IMHO.
My sentiments as well. I only came across the issue of Helmholtz while researching the history of photography! Helmholtz is famous for all sorts of things in physics, but he coined the idea of the “eye as an optical instrument” which echoes unwittingly an Intelligent Design theme.
But since the articles I was reading mentioned Kant, and we have someone here, Kantian Naturalist, who likes Kant, I thought he might be interested, if he didn’t know it already, about some of the memorial lectures given in Kant’s honor.
Also, not that I really understand the fine points about philosophy, but I didn’t even know some viewed the empiricism of experimental science as some sort of different approach than rationalism. Not that I understand the two different schools of thought that much either.
The article (linked below) highlights the problems with testimonials and anecdotes in support of various nostrums. I especially liked the example of the Detroit politician who took HCQ on day 12 of her coronavirus illness. Miraculous cure she claimed within hours even, despite being having arrived at the end of the natural course of mild coronavirus infection on day 12.
Have a read….
“Miracle cure” testimonials aside, azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine probably do not work against COVID-19
Here we go again. Didier Raoult has published another uninformative study looking at the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat COVID-19. Unfortunately, recent data examining these drugs have been trending in the direction of the conclusion that these drugs probably don’t work against COVID-19 but do cause harm. Sadly, the lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the hucksters from promoting hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19.
I’ve written about how incredibly weak the evidence base supporting the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine (including the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin) is twice already. Given that there have been developments in the two weeks since last I wrote about this topic, I thought that an update would be in order, as there are new studies. I’ll start with the “miracle cure” testimonials that have been used to argue that hydroxychloroquine ± azithromycine “saved” patients. (I know I’ve discussed a couple of these before.) Then I’ll move on to Didier Raoult’s latest study. Finally, I’ll discuss other evidence, including evidence of drug toxicity without evidence of benefit.
continue reading at the link
At least Sal gambles with his own money.
Dynamic video of Top Oil producers since 1973 showing the month to month numbers from 1973 the present.
USA is now #1 and never dipped (as far as I can tell) below #3!
USA USA USA!
stcordova,
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Prices-Hit-15-For-The-First-Time-In-21-Years.html
stcordova,
America, number one destroyer of the planet. Burn that fuel!!! Burn that fuel!! USA USA USA.
Most guns, most mass shooting, most incarcerated, most drug abusers, most expensive health care. Most homeless. Fattest people in the world. Soon to be most illiterate. Dumbest leader who ever lived.
Sal is so proud.
I only got asked five times today, why is the orange infant so dumb. Its a really slow day.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/oil-price-crashes-record-low
I freaking thought something was wrong with the data feed this morning! YIKES!!!! I made a few bucks on a bear spread on oil, btw. 🙂
Right after you posted your taunt comment. That can’t be coincidence! Perhaps God is trying to tell you something?
Oil prices have gone down because the USA is producing more oil now than it ever did and the corona virus shut down. Saudi Arabia and Russia are agreeing to oil production cuts, but not the USA. The reason Oil futures are down is that we have so much oil in the transportation pipeline we don’t have places to put it.
Price of regular gas in Wisconsin is 1.22 per gallon. Too bad gas prices can’t be like oil FUTURES prices, because that would mean, gas stations would have to pay you to fill your gas tanks.
Seems my suspicions about Bill Gates not being quite the altruistic giver he likes to portray himself as was pretty accurate:
Whilst Gates has repeatedly claimed its not fair that he is so rich, compared to everyone else on the planet, and that he won’t give his money to his children, and instead has pledged to give away as much as his money as possible to charity is mostly just PR spin. Take a look at all the things he spends money on, car collections, artwork, private jets, properties round the world, importing sand from the Caribbean for his house in Washington’s beach, and on, and on…
Now of course people will say, it’s his money, he can do what he wants with it. That is sort of technically true, but then he should stop being treated like he is a saint with his money, because he isn’t. From what I can tell he has actually given away less than 5% of his wealth to charity. What are you waiting for Bill? Have some more paintings and DaVinci manuscripts to buy first? When you have 100 billion (let’s not count the other 2 billion, because after 100 billion, it all starts to look alike), its pretty easy to act like you give a lot away when you really don’t.
Secondly, by pretending he is giving away his money when he really isn’t he promulgates the political lie that if you let rich people keep as much money as possible, (and in fact continue to accumulate more and more outlandish wealth by an economic system which makes it all the more easy for wealthy people to obtain more wealth that is not available to people who don’t have these opportunities-like cush Board of Director salaries for instance-that require virtually NO effort) , well, they will give it all away, so we don’t really need to tax them. Well, no they won’t. But they will certainly SAY they will.
Elizabeth Warren is right about this.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-stepping-down-boards-215400123.html
Well, yes, that is a reasonable assessment.
I’m not a Bill Gates fan, but I think you are being a tad unreasonable.
Who treats him like a saint? I certainly don’t. But I’m glad that he spends part of his money on good causes. That’s better than what some other rich guys do.
I think you have probably heard or read many numerous news stories about what a great philanthropist gates his, and he is almost hailed as a model of what the wealthy should be doing. In fact the myth is so pervasive, that even you seem to think he does a lot with his money for charity.
Well Gates has been the wealthiest man on the planet, for probably more years than anyone in history. His wealth is so enormous, and continues to grow, that it is kind of hard to adequately explain this kind of wealth in comparison to the rest of the people in the world. Furthermore, this wealth is not based on any true world shattering contributions to society. It is primarily based on the fact that he lives in a place and time where accumulating huge wealth has been made easier and easier for people like him. He has benefited enormously from policies for the rich that began around the time of Nixon through Reagan and Bush. In other eras, or other countries, his wealth would be taxed at a rate of 90%, which worked quite fine for the ultra wealthy in America until the late sixties I believe.
So if the richest man in the world, is universally known as this great philanthropist, if he preaches how he would much rather give away his fortunes, that spoil his kids with money that would ruin their lives, and motivations, then why doesn’t he actually do that. Instead he gives away something like 2% or even less to charity. And while doing so, he gets to beat back the critics who say the rich should be taxed higher, by saying, you don’t need to tax me at 90%, how about if instead I give away 2%, or less even.
So the point is that, its PR. Its his money because he lives in a game which has adjusted the rules which let him control a lot of money. You think his money was not earned through help from the government? Through help from crazy laws, that let companies assign Boards of Directors, who then make the salaries for the Boards of Directors, who then decide how the company can manipulate the stock market to make themselves more money, and the cycle continues.
Saying it is his money, is not that much different than saying all the money Putin has is also his money. Well, he gets to decide how to spend it, so in that sense it is his money, but Putin’s way of obtaining that money is not all that different from Gate’s way. Putin makes the rules in his country, that make it possible for him to own all that money, just like the rich in America make the rules that make it possible for the rich to own all that money. What exactly is the difference?
So when you look up Bill Gates on Google, is he described more as a philanthropist, or more as an elitist wealthy hoarder, fighting to keep all the money he can. I say the second description is more accurate, but his media campaign has been effective, and he is described more as the former. You are a victim of the American capitalist mindset, which has been proven to not be the best model for the health of a nation. There is a reason America leads the world in drug addicts, incarcerated populations, homelessness, mental illness, wealth gaps, crime, out of control medical costs, and all kinds of other societal ills.
The experiment in runaway capitalism has not worked out nearly as well as they would like you to believe.
It’s not really the news stories. It’s the commentaries. And you should always be a bit skeptical. Things tend to get exaggerated, because that’s what helps to sell the newspaper (or the advertising).
It doesn’t make much difference to me. He isn’t going to be giving me any of his money.
That’s not my mindset. But I only have one vote.
Gates is certainly the most famous face of wealthy philanthropy in the world. But if I’m reality even he is not actually all that generous and authentic, I think that should concern all who have a social conscience. It makes it all that much easy for other ultra wealthy to just follow his example and make meaningless pledges, or give 2 or 3 percent of their wealth to charity and then say see aren’t we generous, nothing needs to change, we don’t need to be taxed, now please don’t let the public be critical of us. It’s our money, go away.
Bit like how Uri Geller has fooled some into thinking he has PSI powers and James Randi is actually the fraudster preventing the truth about PSI from coming out?
Bit like that, perhaps?
Odd how you complain about one misrepresentation but encourage others. Almost like it depends on your purpose….
The FBI use psychics, now go away.
phoodoo,
I think you have bought into something of a strawman regarding Bill Gates and philanthropy.
Bill Gates is a very smart guy. [He is also, as my colleagues have heard me state many a time, “the devil”. But that complaint — about the philosophy of software development that has made him insanely rich — is orthogonal.]
Suppose, hypothetically, that you were a smart guy. You had founded a company that became fabulously successful, such that your stock holding was worth billions of dollars.
Cool.
You decide that you want to make the world a better place. How would you go about doing this?
Would you donate half of your “Microsoft” stock to your fave charities?
No, you would not. (Apart from anything else, if it was an unrestricted gift, you could get sued by other stockholders…) Remember, you are a smart guy. In order to maximise the effect of your philanthropy, you want to retain some control; you would set up a charitable foundation and a trust, and you would, over time, fund the trust. You would hire smart people to run these entities. You would quit your day job and transition to running the charitable foundation. You would encourage other billionaires to commit their funds to your well-run charity, getting Warren Buffet to pledge 2 billion a year over the next 15 years. You would make a similar commitment. You would get other billionaires to promise to give at least half their net worth to philanthropy, as you have promised, roping in Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Carl Icahn and hilariously, Mackenzie Bezos.
All to maximise your impact. If you were smart.
[Pauses, presses finger to ear-piece, “what’s that, you say?”]
Right, right, and when did he make that promise? I believe it was over 20 years ago. Now in that time, I am pretty sure he has not given over 2% of his wealth away. So the obvious question would be, so when are you going to give the rest Bill? Who are you going to give it to? Because you have had 20 years to do it and you still haven’t. Furthermore during those 20 years you are buying expensive car collections, expensive art, property all over the world, because I guess you figure, well, I guess those charities you care so much about are not really in any hurry. For that matter Bill, you know you may die of a heart attack tomorrow, so what’s the plan then-your wife will stop buying Davinci paintings and islands, and then you will give it away? Or do you need to wait for her to die too?
He has claimed for years he will not leave a big fortune for his children. I have heard him say this many times. So if he and his wife were to die tomorrow, 50 billion is going to charity? And the other 50 billion, where is that going? Again, I get that he feels the world doesn’t need that money in any kind of hurry, so he might as well buy some more houses and paintings first, but, you know, eventually…
Its the same bullshit line from Steve Jobs wife. I am sure she learned this from Gates. She says she won’t give her fortune to her children as well, because she doesn’t think it is good for people to get money they haven’t earned. Haha, did you get that joke?
She famously said “If I live long enough, it ends with me.” Huh? What if she doesn’t live long enough? What she claims she is going to do is give it all to charity as soon as she can. Well, ok, not as soon as she can. First there is the worlds most expensive yacht. But after that..Well, not right after that obviously, because well, she likes things, lots of things, horses, art, jewelry, but after that, she is going to get right down to it, the spending part. I am not saying today, because they have this awesome sale on new handbags at Louis Vuitton, so she won’t exactly have the time today. But right after she reupholsters the new yacht, she will probably find some time to think about it.
Zuckerberg, ditto. One day he is going to give it all away. Perhaps. Not now, because, well, he has to buy things. But one day when he doesn’t have to buy things.
One thing I have noticed about all these so called saintly philanthropists who agree how unfair it is how rich they are-they all have an amazing ability to know when they are going to die. Maybe they also have hired Uri Geller. Must not have come cheap.
Gates, like his friends, has gotten an awful lot of mileage over a promise no one knows if he will keep. Maybe he is still a bit worried about that tax Warren might make him pay, where he says he might have to start thinking about it. Suffice to say, promising to give to it all to charity, while buying everything under the sun, is not the same as actually doing it.
And Frankly, I don’t buy the whole”It’s my money to do what I want” American capitalist argument. Its only your money, because there were laws that made it so you could get it. If there were laws that let people own the air or the water, and charge others for it, they might accumulate all the money on the planet. And then the laws could be changed to take that money back. So the money is contingent on the government saying you can keep what we say. But the government has no true moral obligation to make sure Gates or others gets to keep all his money. Some governments have different policies. Some have rules that don’t allow you to earn a certain amount more than your workers. Is it immoral for a government to do that? I think not. Some governments also have rules about stocks. Rules about monopolies. Rules about property ownership. You aren’t born with a right that says, whatever I get, no matter how I get it, I get to keep. Unless you own the government too. Which is sort of what Putin does.
So in what way is Gates more entitled to all that money any more than Putin? People claim Putin stole it from the country. But if he makes the rules, what does stealing mean? This happens all over the world. And sometimes those leaders end up having to give the money back. Or even give their life back. So anything you “own” you only own at the behest of the country that says, we will let you keep this much.
Suppose Gates were able to turn that 100 billion into 100 trillion. How about 1 quadrillion, because he bought the world’s entire stock of metal. Is it his, because well, he bought it?
Having grown up in England, I wonder how the land is owned and jealously guarded by so few individuals. William the Conqueror (Bastard) literally won England as his personal property in battle and gave bits to his retinue as a reward for their support. Landed gentry can trace their entitlements back to those events.
Seems somewhat arbitrary.
To further illustrate my point-If there was a group of 50 people living on an island full of coconut tress, and the rule was you pick your own coconuts, and then one night some adventurous young soul named Homer decided he was going to climb all the trees in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, and he would bring all the coconuts back to his hut. The next day he had 1000 coconuts in his hut, meanwhile there were only two other coconuts left on the island for the other 49 people. There is nothing sinister, or evil, about the rest of the people on the island saying, you know what, you don’t need 1000 coconuts, and other people do need coconuts, so we are changing the rules, you can’t keep all those coconuts. And Homer would argue, but I worked very hard for those coconuts. It took me all night. I didn’t sleep even once. I played by the rules. Why should it matter if I need that many coconuts, I want that many coconuts. I am willing to work hard to have them.
Americans would have you believe taking away Homer’s coconuts is one of the greatest sins ever committed against humanity.