[AmericanThinker] Emma Lazarus could not imagine, when writing the 1883 sonnet inscribed on the Statute of Liberty, that the words of lines 10 and 11 -- “Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” -- would bear such relevance to the situation now being endured by American citizens under government lockdown thanks to a global pandemic midwifed by scientists in a Chinese viral research lab in Wuhan.
[AP] College sports programs are already being cut and more are likely on the chopping block. How about " - Studies" programs that have to be required courses to get non-snowflakes to take and support? Diversity whores? Liberal Arts that lead to no career path but barista?
The coronavirus pandemic has triggered fears of an economic meltdown on campuses around the country. The cancellation of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament cost schools $375 million and more losses are expected, especially if football season is disrupted in the fall.
In tough times, athletic administrators often drop sports programs to save money. In the past few weeks, Old Dominion said it will drop wrestling and Cincinnati will no longer have men’s soccer. Warnings of tough times ahead have come from all over college athletics, even some of the wealthiest Power Five schools.
"To say it’s not going to have any economic impact -- that, I would say, would be grossly naïve," said Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, who oversees a program that had $148 million in operating revenue in 2017-18 and boasts of 20 straight years of balanced budgets.
#1
New models? No, it is doubtful that will occur.
The raison d'être of 'higher education' shifted many years ago. Along with the shift came the dumbing-down of standards. Causation needs no explanation here. A few exceptions do still exist.
#5
And if you end mandatory indoctrination classes for departments that would draw near zero elective attendance, you probably could save even more money (especially from law suits from academic culturally prosecuted student victims of those you credentialed and then employed cause they can't get jobs on that paper anyway).
#12
It's disgusting. My old university used eminent domain to scarf up property (and a family friend's business) to build a sport complex years ago. It is now pretty much a white elephant. Pathetic.
Even more pathetic is when they would send their alumni requests for money. I was so angry I called them and told them to take me off of their mailing list forever.
#16
It;s a little, a lot, more nuanced than the sports programs being vampires.
Originally the Athletic Departments were told that they had to be self funded. Then the television money started pouring in and the major college administrators developed a massive desire to share the wealth™. Much of the Amateur facilities, such as free volleyball, tennis and other facilities for the normal everyday students is paid for largely from this revenue stream.
Is it corrupt? Are these *cough* student athletes *cough* largely mercenaries and not students? Yet it is what it is --- some good and some bad.
Does a governor want those votes and that sweet alumni donation?
Some years back, University of Kansas approached then Governor Sebelius requestion some $10million for 'bathroom renovations' some 8 bathrooms. Next year, the football stadium had new lights. KU football makes its attendance by how many of the visiting team's fans show up.
[Western Journal] A new study estimates that the first human cases of COVID-19 in China may have occurred as early as September.
China has admitted that the disease was present in Wuhan, the capital of its Hubei Province, in December, although for weeks into January it denied that human-to-human transmission had already taken place.
Some reports have said that, according to internal Chinese documents not shared with the West, cases of the virus existed as early as November.
But now, according to the U.K. Daily Star, a University of Cambridge geneticist and his research team are arguing even that timetable could be off by as much as two months.
All viruses mutate. Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster has been tracking the subtle mutations of the novel coronavirus, hoping to find — based on the DNA of the virus in those who were infected in December — how far back the trail of mutations will lead him.
TRENDING: Pentagon: ABC's 'Bombshell' Report that Trump Admin Knew About Coronavirus in November 'Not Correct'
"The virus may have mutated into its final ’human-efficient’ form months ago, but stayed inside a bat or other animal or even human for several months without infecting other individuals," Forster said, according to the Daily Star.
"Then, it started infecting and spreading among humans between September 13 and December 7," he said.
#3
All of these reports come off as CCD misinformation to me.
Chinese experts that were later disappeared indicate they believed the thing started in Wuhan near that wetmarket/lab and I have no reason to doubt them because some western folks using second hand data provided by the Chinese say so.
[PJMedia] New York is a hotspot when it comes to coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... cases and deaths, but that’s only because of downstate. Upstate New York’s coronavirus situation pales in comparison to downstate. New York City, in particular, was doomed due to the incompetence of local leaders, as well as other factors, such as population density and its subway system aiding in the spread of the virus.
Personally, I’ve thought for weeks we should be counting downstate New York separately from the rest of the country. So I looked at the numbers to see what happens when you separate downstate New York from the rest of the country.
Downstate New York technically includes New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley, but I am only including Kings, Queens, New York, Suffolk, Bronx, Nassau, Westchester and Richmond Counties. These counties have a population of 12,205,796, according to World Population Review’s numbers for 2020—bigger than many countries.
After compiling data for the top 30 countries with the most cases of the coronavirus, I ranked the top ten countries by confirmed cases per capita (per million) based on the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University’s data as of 11:00 am ET on April 18, 2020.
Spain (4,100.67)
Belgium (3,208.30) Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... (3,166.40) Italia (2,851.95)
Ireland (2,831.23) La Belle France (2,284.94) United States (2,135.43)
Portugal (1,930.52)
Netherlands (1,853.88)
United Kingdom (1,698.42)
Right away we can see that the United States does not "lead the world" in coronavirus cases. Even with downstate New York in the mix, the United States isn’t nearly as bad as the mainstream media makes it out to be. But here’s what happens to the top ten once you treat downstate New York as its own country:
Downstate New York (16,230.65)
Spain (4,100.67)
Belgium (3,208.30)
Switzerland (3,166.40) Italia (2,851.95)
Ireland (2,831.23) La Belle France (2,284.94)
Portugal (1,930.52)
Netherlands (1,853.88)
United Kingdom (1,698.42)
Separating downstate New York from the rest of the United States shows us just how bad the situation there is. In fact, the rest of the country doesn’t even rank in the top ten anymore (it comes in at #13).
But, as I’ve mentioned before, confirmed cases are not the best way to compare countries because of the discrepancies in testing between them. So, let’s compare these countries by the fatality rate per capita (per million).
Belgium (470.51)
Spain (428.68) Italia (376.19) La Belle France (286.53)
United Kingdom (228.28)
Netherlands (210.86)
Switzerland (155.29) United States (112.04)
Ireland (107.34)
Portugal (67.37)
Once again, even with downstate New York included, the coronavirus has impacted the United States much less than other hard-hit countries. But now, here’s what happens when we treat downstate New York as a separate country from the United States in terms of deaths per capita (per million).
Downstate New York (848.45)
Belgium (470.51)
Spain (428.68) Italia (376.19) La Belle France (286.53)
United Kingdom (228.28)
Netherlands (210.86)
Switzerland (155.29)
Sweden (149.61)
Ireland (107.34)
Once again, downstate New York leads the pack and the United States (without downstate New York) doesn’t even come in the top ten (it comes in at #11).
I should mention here that several countries are reportedly undercounting their cases and deaths, including Iran, China, and Russia. It’s very possible that the actual case and death numbers for these countries are much higher, possibly even putting them in the top ten, but without reliable data I can’t correct for this.
#7
Okay, 'fessing up.
I got a really good education there in Chemistry and Physics, which later became Pchem as I advanced. The professors were great, the labs were amazing. That said, my advisors were younger than I (and were out of sync with me, as I was coming off 10 years in the Army, Infantry, 11B4P). Fate smiled on the Damned Infantry, and I ended up with a very good one, maybe the best; Edward M. Purcell. He was retired (emeritus) but made a huge difference in my life and education. I worked in the Physics machine shop at his behest; they taught me a lot, all very practical and useful still. Before that my last 3+ years in the Army was spent at MIT. While overseas, I had taken a round through my helmet. It bounced off my (thick) skull but left consequential damage. My division commander MADE (created) a position there for me. Ring knockers. I taught Light and Heavy Weapons and Land Navigation to the student body, and took courses in Physics, Calc, Chemistry and EE. I ran into a few like this Professor, but let their prejudices bounce off me. There were far more great people than not. I think I am the luckiest person on the planet.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/20/2020 16:26 Comments ||
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#8
"#4 Do you know how you can tell if someone went to Harvard? Don't worry, they will tell you." That is funny, and true! There was a movie with that line I think.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/20/2020 16:31 Comments ||
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#9
So, a Vegan, a Crossfit athlete, and a Harvard Guy walk into a bar...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2020 16:47 Comments ||
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#10
And that was ONE person.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/20/2020 16:53 Comments ||
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Whiskey Mike - I ain't that smart, but when I dealt with him, his attitude was always 'and I want this done now'. In retrospect I just should've charged him the Bitch Tax (standard billing rate plus 50%) but I wound up hanging up on him on one phone call. I then got baked so I could calm down a bit and then I called him back.
'Hey, Raj, I think we got cut off.'
'No - I hung up on you because you're being a jackoff!'
At that point, the end was near so I just walked away.
#13
Ah, Purcell. The first guy, I think, to show that electric charges are not acted on by magnetic fields, but only by electric fields in their relativistic rest frame.
#14
His findings had a big impact on everything we are about today. I remember his 'discovery' of magnetic resonance. I had to fight my way through relativistic expressions of electric fields (where do we start?) but while not sure I completely understood it (yeah I can do the math but understanding is something else) I tried to use it. AND it seemed to work. Look for weird patents coming soon to this planet. That work in the real world.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/20/2020 21:28 Comments ||
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#15
There are certain paradoxes that don’t seem to resolve. Agreement on the interpretation is not universal.
[The Hill] The old joke that doctors bury their mistakes should be amended, because former statesmen sometimes try to do so as well. Claims advanced by Henry Kissinger, the doyen of the U.S. foreign policy community, that the coronavirus is a danger to the liberal international order are correct, especially since the virus has killed tens of thousands around the world.
But the specter that is haunting the world order is not the virus that originated in Wuhan. It is the rise of dictatorial China. And it was Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of State and national security adviser, who contributed mightily to this threat as one of the major creators and advocates of the decades-long U.S. strategy towards China emphasizing cooperation, "bringing China in" to the international order, and fostering its growth so that it could become a "responsible stakeholder."
The expectation was that China would cooperate with the West to preserve the present liberal order of global politics. This approach was a profound mistake: In a historically unprecedented act, the West actively contributed to the creation of its most formidable peer competitor. China hid behind a false promise to abide by Western rules and norms to forestall balancing against it, while it rapidly developed economically and militarily — and was creating a new international order to replace the one that is so rightly valued in the West.
Long before COVID-19, China labored to replace the world order while working inside to achieve it. Despite claims to the contrary, China is not a status quo great power. It is a revolutionary great power that seeks fundamental and permanent changes to the contemporary order in international politics. If it achieves its objectives, it will be the death of the existing liberal order. That indeed will be a new epoch in global politics.
Put directly: The school of thought advanced by Kissinger made this possible. Since the 1990s, political and economic interest in the West actively worked with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to support its growth. If the liberal order is to be saved, it will be by confronting and defeating China’s challenge. Until recently, the confrontation largely has been one-sided. China acted vigorously to undermine the position of the West, while the West’s response was mostly absent, inchoate or actually pernicious to itself.
The West did not respond to the challenge for three reasons. First, the economic interest of Western business communities. China’s rise was aided by its ability to influence Western firms in China, trading access to the People’s Republic of China’s enormous market in return for the firms’ technology and processes. At the same time, China employed the firms’ influence with their domestic governments to ensure support for China — and thus China was on the path to becoming an economic power.
Second, what the Chinese government could not willingly receive from economic cooperation they might steal through the development and employment of advanced cyber capabilities.
#1
Despite claims to the contrary, China is not a status quo great power. It is a revolutionary great power that seeks fundamental and permanent changes to the contemporary order in international politics. If it achieves its objectives, it will be the death of the existing liberal order.
Finally, some clear thinking. The only nations that accept the liberal order are our allies. It's a western order anchored by the Anglosphere and the great powers that we defeated in the war, Germany and Japan.
No other major nations have bought into the premises of US-dominated democratic capitalism-- not Russia, or Iran, or India or China. Each of those nations represents a proud civilization that wants to live by its own precepts.
Culture matters. There is no "global citizen," no universal standard of governance.
We are waking up from 30 years of sleepwalking in a fog.
#2
Bribing the Chinese to "play nice" has failed. But in a classic display of elitist thinking the answer is to double down. Some saying about doing the same thing and expecting a different result each time...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/20/2020 9:06 Comments ||
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#3
Ref #2:. Yes MM, just as many have suspected. We have swallowed the hook and it is permanently lodged in the pit of our stomach. All will soon be forgiven and it will be back to business as usual.
#4
/\ Bribing the Chinese? If they didn't invent it then they have institutionalized the practice for millennia -- it's like a rookie sitting down and thinking they can outplay a professional cardplayer.
h/t Instapundit
[DW]- The most astonishing thing about the coronavirus pandemic is how easily borders can come back. The internet metaphor that we use ever more often tells it best: One after the other European countries are installing a firewall with a simple click of the mouse. Then tourism is dead, trade is down, the stock exchange loses trillions and globalization itself is brought to a standstill.
Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers return home to Bulgaria, Serbia or Romania, only to be welcomed with mixed feelings. On the one hand, "bringing our children back" had been a constant lament in recent decades, now everyone is back in "their place." On the other, there are no jobs to offer to the returnees, especially not in times of crisis. In addition, national economies will badly miss the remittances they used to send home.
The welcoming ceremony in the fatherland consists of a sad quarantine — applied to any foreigner — and is accompanied by a feeling that you are trapped and can no longer leave, which people who experienced communism well remember.
...The new border between East and West has even acquired a medical dimension. According to one theory, a specific vaccine against tuberculosis that used to be compulsory under state socialism might have a protective effect against the coronavirus as well: Comparisons between the former East Germany and West Germany are underway. Not true, see Russia
From another, more cynical standpoint, the new disease might be the price to pay for better health systems in the West that keep people alive longer. Both Italy and Spain today have the highest life expectancy — 83 years — as well as the highest mortality rate in Europe. Nope. The highest mortality rates in Europe are Sweden & Holland (and possibly UK - they don't publish recovery stats). All 3 have started with "lets go for herd immunity" countries - then gave this brilliant idea up, officially.
...The most worrying, yet invisible, border has been drawn between generations. The illness painfully puts young and old in opposition, as it is the latter who appear to be the only ones seriously menaced by it. Thus, the feeling grows that the world economy is being sacrificed in order to save the lives of people who are doomed to die soon anyway. Wouldn't it be better to shut them up some place and let the others acquire "herd immunity?" See the remark on Sweden & Holland above.
...Some speak of a ticking pension time bomb of some $400 trillion (€360 trillion) worldwide that will be lacking in 2050 and likely destroy the economy as we know it. But the most dramatic aspect of the clash of generations remains the degradation of nature, caused by those who quietly benefit from their pensions today.
...And that might not be the end of it. We might see growing class conflict between rich and poor. Tensions between the industrial and the developing world. Between democratic and authoritarian states.
Borders have appeared all of a sudden again in Europe. Can we hope that they will disappear overnight, too?
Ivaylo Ditchev is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. He has been a guest lecturer in countries such as Germany, France and the United States.
[PaulCraigRoberts] The answer to the question is "YES." The large bailed-out creditors will end up with the property of the non-bailed-out debtors who are being pushed deeper into debt with "bail-out loans" and fees and penalties for missed debt payments. Write-offs for the One Percent, and more indebtedness for everyone else.
Turn your mind to the economy. The US has a work force of 164,000,000. The unemployment forecast from the work closedowns is 30%. That would mean 49,000,000 people who are potential rioters. (We are half way there with today's report of a 16% unemployment rate with 22 million unemployed). Many of these people were already living paycheck to paycheck, could not raise $400, and their debts leave them no discretionary income. As they could barely service their debts when employed, how do they service them when unemployed and when their small businesses are closed and incurring costs but have no revenues? Loans further indebt them. The cash payouts to the unemployed might cover food and housing but will not service their debts.
Fast food franchises and stores in malls are saying they are not paying their rents for three months. Mall owners won't be able to pay their creditors. The bailout works for no one except those who caused the problem. As they are being bailed out, they will have the money to buy up or foreclose on the bankrupted businesses. More property will be concentrated in fewer hands.
Continued on Page 49
#1
The elite have failed us too many times. It is time to dethrone them.
35 years of failure by these buffoons:
- the Amnesty Bill idiocy in 1986
- the botched Iraq/Afgh wars
- the botched response to the market meltdown of 2008
- the 30-year China
h/t Instapundit
[The Week] ...Among the many things we don't yet understand about this new coronavirus is how deadly it is or how many people have been infected. "Fatality rates depend heavily on how overwhelmed hospitals get and what percentage of cases are tested," And we have two schools of thought - battling to the death, and calling each other names - based on these two aspects: "lower the curve" vs "herd immunity - lockdown is a totalitarian plot". People just don't understand mixed strategies.
and those numbers keep getting revised in hard-hit areas, McNeil reports. People who die of the disease at home or in overwhelmed hospitals are not counted, but people with few or no symptoms are never tested, so "if you don't know how many people are infected, you don't know how deadly a virus is."
The changing fatality rate is one reason the models keep fluctuating, Actually, it's not the models (there's only one) - it's the estimates of the model's parameters.
McNeil says, but "there may be good news buried in this inconsistency: The virus may also be mutating to cause fewer symptoms. In the movies, viruses become more deadly. In reality, they usually become less so, because asymptomatic strains reach more hosts. Even the 1918 Spanish flu virus eventually faded into the seasonal H1N1 flu." After killing 50 million people. So don't throw away your masks, gloves, and hand-sanitizer yet.
While we don't know the fatality rate or level of contagion, the "refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals tell us all we need to know: It is far worse than a bad flu season," McNeil writes. How the pandemic ends depends on the virus' lethality, medical advances, and how individuals behave, he adds. "If we scrupulously protect ourselves and our loved ones, more of us will live. If we underestimate the virus, it will find us." An NYT reporter. Obviously a totalitarian propagandist.
#1
While the symptoms of Wuhan disease do resemble those of known diseases like the common cold or the flu we should keep in mind that this is something new that is also still rapidly evolving.
I do hope there aren't any nastysurprises waiting for some of the survivors of the acute infection years in the future.
Even a variation that causes a milder acute infection might still be extremely dangerous.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Western Journal] A new study estimates that the first human cases of COVID-19 in China may have occurred as early as September.
Dr. SHIVA Ayyadurai, MIT PhD Crushes Dr. Fauci Exposes Birx, Clintons, Bill Gates, And The W.H.O
[The Hill] The old joke that doctors bury their mistakes should be amended, because former statesmen sometimes try to do so as well. Claims advanced by Henry Kissinger, the doyen of the U.S. foreign policy community, that the coronavirus is a danger to the liberal international order are correct, especially since the virus has killed tens of thousands around the world.
[PaulCraigRoberts] The answer to the question is "YES." The large bailed-out creditors will end up with the property of the non-bailed-out debtors who are being pushed deeper into debt with "bail-out loans" and fees and penalties for missed debt payments. Write-offs for the One Percent, and more indebtedness for everyone else.
