Repeating tthe Past

I am 78 years old, so perhaps my perspective is a little more long term than today’s space travel enthusiasts, who are wildly excited that some rich guy got to ride weightless in orbit for ten minutes.

I recall when the US space program was able to put Alan Shepard into a weightless orbit on the edge of space in 1961, no less than sixty years ago and half again longer than this “adventure.”

What are we doing? Who are we, to be celebrating that we have regained the ability to do something that we first did more than half a century ago?

We have a little vehicle driving around on Mars, but we did that in 1997, almost 25 years ago.  We are planning to land an unmanned rocket on the Moon, but China did that last year, and we first did it in 1970, again, more than fifty years ago. We are still not even planning a manned mission to the Moon, something we first accomplished 52 years ago and are not presently capable of doing.

We are excited as all get out about repeating “exploration” of fifty years ago, but what are we doing (and by that I mean doing, not just talking about) that is actually new or ground breaking?

More Contra-Narrative

Merck, announced today that they filed an “emergency use authorization” request with the FDA for an oral antiviral medicine for treating Covid-19. Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb lobbied for the emergency use authorization, declaring the untested pill to be “a profound game changer.”

Question: If the vaccine works the way that public health agencies and the government claims, as justification for requiring the vaccination in order to keep your job and participate in our social fabric, why is a pill such as this needed on an emergency use basis?

And why would it be seen as a “profound game changer” if the vaccine was working effectively to prevent the spread of the virus?

Pandemic Logic

There may be a planet somewhere on which it makes sense to complain about a shortage of employees to fill vacant positions while firing the employees you have because they refuse to be politically correct, but this is not that planet.

Misinformation as a Public Health Crisis

San Diego City Council passed a resolution last week declaring that “Covid misinformation is a public health crisis.”

No specific action was included in that resolution, merely that the conclusion be “studied,” and that methods be devised to prevent misinformation from being spread.

Meanwhile the public health agencies, along with doctor and nursing agencies, continue to urge everyone to get vaccinated immediately if they have not done so because this “surge” is happening due to the “fact” that Covid is now “the disease of the unvaccinated.” They claim that nearly all of the “cases” today are occurring among people who have not received the shot(s).

Other countries, much more heavily vaccinated than the US, are experiencing something rather different.

 

 

San Diego claims that 75% of our population is “fully vaccinated,” and that 25% of our population is now causing more cases than 100% of the population caused a year ago when the vaccine was not available. To anyone with more than a few functioning brain cells, that seems highly unlikely. Who’s spreading misinformation?

So perhaps the difference between San Diego and Israel, Iceland and Gibralter, all with vaccination rates and infection rates higher than ours, is not so much the experience as the degree of honesty.

Little Noticed

Yes, the Formula 1 “race” was a farce, but too little notice is given to the Red Bull team rebuilding Sergio’s car and having it ready to race in less than two hours. The guys in the garage are the unsung heroes of auto racing.

Also unnoticed was the action of Kevin Harvick on the final lap at Daytona last night. Caught in the middle of a massive multi-car pileup, his car was pretty much destroyed, but he managed to drive free of all the wreckage and make it all the way down the track and across the finish line.

His wreckage (I won’t call it a car) was visible in the background as Ryan Blaney was celebrating at the finish line. I think his effort, which gained him several positions in the race results, deserved comment, but it escaped NBC’s notice.

Childhood Memory

 I was reading a blog yesterday in which the writer mentioned how, as a child, she would have felt unsafe if her parents were not in charge, and it brought back a childhood memory.

I was 7 or 8 years old and had been brought to the hospital with a fairly severe concussion. After making me stay awake for some time, they finally got me admitted and into a room and told me I could go to sleep.

I was having no part of that, and continued to fight hard to stay awake. “It’s okay, William,” they kept telling me, “you can go to sleep now.” I refused and continued to fight the sandman. I wasn’t entirely sure why it was not okay, but I was just not comfortable letting sleep take me.

Then I heard my father’s voice out in the hallway and I was asleep before he made it into the room.

After 46 years we seem to be doing the same thing and, while it's a bit on the trivial side, we're using the same type of helicopter to do it?  

 

Update, Monday, 10:15pm: I was not actually intending to imply criticism. The CH-46 Sea Knight is a fine bird. Like the B-52, which we are also still using in quantity, it was built by Boeing back when that company was run by engineers rather than by bookkeepers.

Adapting

The human species was well established in North America during the last Ice Age, which means they saw the end of that Ice Age coming.

Were they panicked? Did they see the ice cap melting and scream hysterically at each other about the disaster that would befall them if all that ice continued to melt? Did they frantically try to imagine ways to stop the ice from melting further, because of the unimaginably bad conditions that would result if all the ice melted?

“We have to build fewer camp fires, because we’re all going to die if the ice melts.”

They didn’t stop the ice from melting, of course (if they tried, which is doubtful), and things didn’t get all that bad, they actually got better.

So here we are with the ice melting again, and no one is suggesting that we ought to be coming up with ways to live with the change, they are hysterically screaming that we have to stop the change.

If you see a boulder rolling down the hill at you, which is the better course of action? Step aside, or try to stop the boulder? Well, if you are a “climate scientist,” the obvious answer is “stop the boulder.” Good luck with that.

Humans have one advantage over any other being in the animal kingdom. We can use our intellect to adapt to change. Well, we used to be able to do that.

Mandatory Vaccination Unravels

Hysteria over the “Delta variant” has completely unraveled the vaccination mandate, although authoritarian government has not yet recognized that and is still trying to ban you from employment, travel and entertainment unless you submit to a jab that, from a public health standpoint, is completely useless.

Fear of the “Delta variant” may be real (may be), but rationale for the vaccine mandate most certainly is not, now that the CDC has announced that people who are vaccinated can get infected and carry viral loads as high as, and even higher than, people who are not vaccinated.

This means that people who are vaccinated can spread the “Delta variant” as easily as those who have not been vaccinated, which in turn means that there is no public health benefit to vaccination. Yet more and more companies and governments are denying access unless you have been vaccinated. That might be a reasonable precaution to protect others if vaccination prevented, or even reduced the spread of Covid19 but, according to the CDC, it does not.

Sign of the Times

An article recently, on a different subject, mentioned that Obama made cuts to NASA so that private industry could take over the space effort. I checked, and rather big cuts were made during his administration. Spending is always blamed on the president (falsely of course), so Obama’s influence on those cuts is not entirely clear, and the reasons for the cuts are not clear at all, but they were made and private industry did take over.

So, what was the effect of this transition from government to private funding of the “space effort?”

Well, under government spending we sent men to the Moon and built the space station. Under private funding we have built reusable rockets to give billionaires ten-minute rides into space, which they have greatly enjoyed.

Zampolit by Another Name

In the Soviet Navy each ship of any size had a Zampolit officer as part of ship’s company. The Zampolit was there to ensure political conformity and report on any ideologically impure crew members, including the Captain.

We are seeing the Left attempting to implement the same structure in the US, only the title is different. The equivalent of the Zampolit officer has infiltrated all major US corporations as the “Chief Diversity Officer.”

Decisions, Decisions

I gave up on the SRX racing series because a) the racing was boring and b) listening to Danica Patrick is like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.

Next week, however, the series will feature Bill Elliott racing against his son Chase. That has only happened once (Bill won, but Chase was still just a kid), so it is being rather seriously hyped at this point. So I have to decide a) is it being overhyped and b) is watching it next Saturday night worth listening to Danica Patrick?

Tough call. Very tough call.

Space Program

Space program? What space program? What are we doing today that we did not do fifty years ago?The equipment that we landed on Mars is a little bit more fancy, but the first Mars lander was in 1976, 45 years ago.

52 years ago we landed a man on the Moon, and not only can we not do that today, we do not even aspire to do that today. We have some loose talk about sending a crew to Mars, but we do not even have designs drawn up for a vehicle to do that. Such a mission is not even serious talk at this point.

Are we an advanced nation? Not when we cannot even plan to do what we actually did half a century ago. Biden is the perfect leader for us today. A senile old fossil, dreaming of past glory.

Doing It Right, Part 2

There is a lake in the infield at Indianapolis, but unfortunately for the announcers, it is not on the track, so Scott Dixon will not be able to demonstrate his ability to drive his car to victory across a body of water. 

I'm sure they have no doubt that he can do that, but it's too bad that he won't be able to demonstrate it for them. The other drivers are just there to provide contrast.

Doing It Right

This coming weekend, at the Coca-Cola 600, each race car will carry on its windshield the name of a person who lost their life in service to this nation.

It’s not the first time NASCAR has done this, and it’s something that the organization has absolutely gotten right. The driver of the car almost always mentions the person being honored on his car in interviews,  he has spent time with that person’s family, and frequently the family is at the race.

The announcers often speak about the honorees during the race as they feature a car. “The 29 car carries the name of…”

Thank you, NASCAR, for your respectful celebration of Memorial Day.

Modern Economics

From an article by Michael Hudson explaining why President Biden is refusing to cancel student debt ,

“The fact is, if the government were to write down all the student debt, it wouldn’t cost the government a penny right now. And that wouldn’t cost the banks a penny because the debt is owed to the government and the government would simply be canceling a future source of revenue.”

I think Mr. Hudson’s definition of “debt” needs to be refined, because it is not currently in contact with reality. “Future revenue” would be something along the lines of “no money has changed hands yet, but some day in the future you will buy something from me.”

Debt would be more like, “you have my money and I want it back.” So when you cancel that debt I don’t get my money back and therefor I do actually lose my money. If the government gets into the habit of randomly cancelling debts, it’s going to become really difficult to find anyone who will lend you money.

The key, of course, is that Mr. Hudson says that the government “it won't cost the government a penny right now,” which is a tacit admission that it will cost the government money in the future, namely when the student loans are supposed to be paid. But he doesn’t worry about tomorrow. “Carpe diem.” Seize today

Good Advice

The Haas team in Formula 1 has two rookie drivers, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, who will be racing at Monaco for the first time this coming weekend. Monaco is a legendary street course with no runoff areas, walls on both sides everywhere. Tricky place to race, to say the least.

Team principal Guenther Steiner had some advice for his two rookies, telling them to, "Stay out of the walls and off the barriers."

 

Well, duh. Does he think they were planning to hit the walls and barriers on purpose?

Logic Should Apply

Dr. Fauci and the Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, both gave the same explanation for the change in policy regarding face masks, namely that it was not so much as change in “science,” as it was simple observation. We have now been administering the vaccine long enough, they told us, and to enough people (some 153 million), that we can now be assured that it works well enough that we can quit wearing face masks.

I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with that. We’ve been trusting these people for fifteen months or so when they are delivering bad news, why should we quit trusting them merely because they deliver some good news?

What they didn’t address is the 33 million people who have what is called “acquired immunity” due to having been infected by the virus and recovering from the resulting illness. Applying the same logic of observation to that group, we should note that an even lower number of that group has become ill a second time (effectively zero, in fact) than in the immunized group, and should acknowledge that this group’s immunity is as good, or even better, than those who have been vaccinated.

In fact, in all known viral diseases where acquired immunity exists at all, (10 out of 14) it is superior to vaccination, being essentially 100% effective, and in all those cases it is well known to last for a lifetime. Why should we assume this one is different?

Two viral diseases, the common cold and annual flu, are not a single virus in either case. Both consist of multiple viruses which combine and mutate annually, obviating any opportunity for acquired immunity. The flu vaccine is developed each year based on the best guess of what next year’s dominant flu virus will be, and in a good year is 40% effective.

The herpes virus is incurable and becomes a latent virus in the host, and since the host cannot get rid of the virus no acquired immunity can be developed.

The rabies virus has such a low survival rate that data on acquired immunity cannot be developed. Vaccines provide immunity for approximately ten years.

All the rest (smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis, polio, ebola, hantavirus, and yellow fever) provide an acquired immunity which last a lifetime. Chicken pox virus can remain latent in the host and return as shingles, but it does not cause a recurrence of chicken pox.

So, if you are going to evaluate this virus against other viruses, you cannot do so against the clod and flu because this is not multiple viruses, it is a single virus with very minor variats. If these variants are not rendering the vaccine impotent, they cannot be doing so to acquired immunity.

You cannot compare this virus to herpes, because clearly we are finding that it is possible to rid the host of the virus, that is to cure the patient.

You obviously cannot compare it to rabies. The death rate is far too low.

So you simply have to compare it to the ten other viruses, all ten of which provide lifetime acquired immunity. Why would you assume this one does not? That’s not to say the issue should not be studied, but you should start with the most likely assumption, especially when that assumption is consistent with current observation to date.

Only Biden...

Biden has another new program, assisting homeowners with their mortgage. To qualify you must owe less than $356,825 and not have missed a payment in six months.

 

?  Why the odd amount? But more to the point, if you have not missed a payment in six months, why do you need help? Weird.

Perspective is Needed

The media is hyperventilating about the Coronavirus pandemic in India, even to the extent of speculating about social collapse of one of the world's most populous nations.

Virtually every state in this country has an infection rate of around 9.8% since the pandemic began. Oddly, regardless of the level of mask mandates, shutdowns, and other measures, 98 out of 1000 people have become infected since the beginning of the pandemic, 902 have not.

 

India, with 1.4 billion people, has incurred 17 million cases of Coronavirus infection cases. That is an infection rate of 1.2% of the population, or about 12% of the rate experienced in this country. That is not to say that 17 million cases is not a tragic problem, but using raw numbers without context can distort reality.

 

Update: Sunday, May 2, 2021

 Put another way, compare India's case count and rate above (17 million, 1.2%) to the same numbers for the Unites States. This country has experienced 33,180,441 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. With a population of 33 million people, that is 10% of our people who have become infected, compared to India's 1.2%,