Author Archives: lawofmarkets

CV-19 update

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Via Instapundit. Not to deny that it can kill you, but there are positive signs that you are unlikely to hear from Daniel Andrews.

GOOD NEWS: UPMC doctor sees too much focus on rising COVID-19 cases, too little on declining severity and hospitalizations.

Related: Hospital patients four times less likely to die now than they were in April, Oxford study finds.

Related: Heather Mac Donald: Where Are The Deaths? “In May, Georgia was the main target of expert contempt for its allegedly premature reopening. Since then, the media have gone silent, due to the state’s truly discouraging downward daily death toll from a high of 119 on April 7, long before the reopenings, to 10 on June 24. . . . There are no crises in hospital capacity anywhere in the country. Nursing homes, meat-packing plants, and prisons remain the main sources of new infections.”

Also: Getting Realistic About The Coronavirus Death Rate.

Nearly all the studies find between 10 and 100 times the number of total infections as reported infections, with the average somewhere around 20 to 25 times.

In other words, while the CDC reports 2.34 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, the actual number of infected and recovered people may be closer to 50 million. (CDC Director Robert Redfield told journalists Thursday that the number of cases may be 10 times higher than the earlier 2.34 million.)

Thus, the death rate, which would be 5.2 percent based on that 2.34 million figure, is actually more like one-20th as high — or 0.26 percent.

It can be awful in some people, but overall it’s turning out to be nowhere near as bad as we feared a few months ago. And that’s good!

138Posted at 8:45 am by Glenn Reynolds 
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Plus this.

WELL, THE PRESS WON’T SAY IT, SO YOU KIND OF HAVE TO: Seen on Facebook: “So there’s a COVID spike 3-4 weeks after the mass protests. Just saying.”

Related: Did Austin’s protests produce coronavirus spike? (Yes.)

192Posted at 8:04 am by Glenn Reynolds 

Melbourne too, it seems.

To understand politics today you have to understand that the left are nutters

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It is often asked why in the face of everything we see from the left that there is not more fighting back going on. Lots of reasons for that, but the most important one may be is that most of us cannot believe how insane the modern left is. Surely they can’t be that crazy, we say, but they are. A couple of examples plucked from Instapundit that are there right now. There were plenty of others yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow. We are dealing with the insane. Not that their being nuts makes then less dangerous, but these people must be treated as the nutters they really are.

 

 

GRAY LADY DOWN: In Racist Screed, NYT’s 1619 Project Founder Calls ‘White Race’ ‘Barbaric Devils,’ ‘Bloodsuckers,’ Columbus ‘No Different Than Hitler.’ “This isn’t the first time the New York Times has hired and kept a writer with a history of racism and radical views. In 2018, the NYT hired Sarah Jeong despite a long string of racist tweets that littered her Twitter calling white people ‘goblins,’ likening their smell to dogs, and asking to ‘#cancelallwhitepeople’.”

 

IT MAY NOT SAVE ANY BLACK LIVES, BUT IT’S GIVING MEANING TO LOTS OF WHITE LIVES THAT ARE SHORT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Pew Analysis Shows Only 1 In 6 BLM Protesters Are Black.

 

 

Led by donkeys

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I did the same analysis confined to just Victoria. Here is the same, this time for the whole of Australia.

There are 25.0 million people living in Australia.

If 10% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 2.5 million people.

If 1% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 250,000 people.

If 0.1% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 25,000 people. That is one person in 1000.

If 0.01% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 2500 people. That is one person in 10,000.

The actual number of people in Australia who now have the CV-19 is 538. That is 0.002% of the population, one person in 50,000.

The number of Covid-19 deaths in Australia in the year to June, 2020: 102.

Number of road deaths in Australia in the 12 months to April 2020: 1135 which for the last four months comes to around 378.

The largest crisis we have in Australia is a crisis of political leadership.

The best they have: an old senile white male

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Found here: BIDEN’S MENTAL CAPACITY: THE EMERGING ISSUE. It’s a Trump ad focused on Biden’s mental incapacities, but what makes it especially special is that it includes our very own Rita Panahi!

Not that I have anything against people who are old, nor people who are white, nor people who are male. Senile is a large problem. But an even larger problem is that Biden is a Democrat in the mould cast by Obama and Black Lives Matter. And in regard to BLM, there is also this to consider: ‘Our Goal Is To Get Trump Out’ Admits Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Who Is A ‘Trained Marxist’.

Speaking to The Real News Now, one of BLM’s co-founders, Patrisse Cullors, admitted “we are trained Marxists.” That sounds like there’s more to this group than hope for racial equality. Never in history has Marxism, socialism, and/or communism turned violence, inequality and poverty into peace, equality, and economic prosperity?

When asked to respond to concerns that Black Lives Matter could “fizzle out” due to a “lack of ideological direction,” Cullors assured her interviewer BLM does indeed have direction; “we actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia, in particular, are trained organizers, we are trained Marxists. We are super versed in ideological theories.”

More relevant news not to be found amongst the Fake Stream Media.

Four months is a long time in politics

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Watching Andrew Bolt today I shared his concern about the American election. It is astonishing to see the line-up against Donald Trump. Every major news network but one, and even that is now half-hearted. The continuous efforts by various institutions of supposedly higher culture – the arts, the academic world, publishing – among which their one area of certain agreement is that Donald Trump has to go. It is a point of guaranteed friction to discuss Donald Trump with virtually everyone we know, and I never bring him up since it is the near-unanimous belief that Trump is the worst president since time began. And when he is mentioned, no one is ever able to explain just exactly what is wrong with what the President has done, or how Joe Biden, or any other Democrat, will make conditions better but they are determined to see him win. And then there is the Corona Virus, and the deep recession that was brought on to kill it. Not to mention the relentless effort to darken the President’s name through Mueller, impeachment and so much else that can be brought into the story, a story that commenced even during the election in what ought to be seen as the greatest political scandal in American history. And then there is the certainty of a relentless and vicious effort that will be made to steal the election. The effort to subvert the attendance at the Trump rally in Tulsa is just a foretaste of what will be in play on November 3.

So this is where we are, but this is the true political miracle of the moment. In spite of everything, Donald Trump is still more likely to win than not, even though it’s by no means a certainty which it never is in a two-horse race. Let me therefore take you back to the post I wrote on November 1, 2016, A week is a long time in politics.

It’s Melbourne Cup day in an American election year but the election is not today. The constitution determined that presidential elections should be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. I don’t know the official reason why but my guess is that back in 1787 they decided not to have the election the day after Hallowe’en so that everyone could spend the day righting their outhouses and cleaning the soap off the windows. But whatever the reason, it has meant that this year there is another week to go.

In my view, had the election been held today, Hillary would have won. The extra week has the potential to reverse this outcome, as the media are forced to report on the corruption and incompetence of Hillary Clinton, as revealed in the emails released. A week from now, it is possible that enough independents, and even some traditional Democrats, will have become sickened at the thought of a Clinton presidency to allow Trump enough of a margin to win in spite of the certain illegality of Democrat election practice.

And the stories provide nothing new, but with the FBI now saying that the investigation into Hillary is open again, attention is being paid. And this is what even the New York Times, Washington Post and ABCBSNBC are being compelled to cover.

LA TIMES TUESDAY: FBI Investigators had planned to conduct new email review over several weeks. It now hopes to complete ‘preliminary assessment’ in coming days, but agency officials have not decided how, or whether, they will disclose results publicly… Developing…
CARVILLE CRACKS: Asserts FBI, GOP and KGB in Cahoots…
Podesta’s BFF At DOJ Will Be In Charge Of New Probe…
45% say scandal worse than Watergate…
BUCHANAN: Pres. Hillary would go way of Nixon…
Clinton unfavorable rating hits new high…
Pollster: ‘Dam About to Break’…
22 million ballots already in…
CITI: Black swan could throw vote off course…
STUDY: Networks Attack Comey Over Clinton 3 to 1…
TRUMP TARGETS DEMOCRATIC STATES IN FINAL ASSAULT…

And the straightforward fact is that even if elected, Hillary could not govern. These are not placid times, and it is not too much to say that the fate of the West is being decided for us right now. More from Drudge:

BORDER BLOWN OPEN…
ILLEGALS FLOOD IN…
FEDS HIDE NUMBERS…
‘WORST WE’VE EVER SEEN’…
SESSIONS: 817,740 CROSSED LAST YEAR!
Leaked Images Show Illegals Strolling Across Open Border…

Merkel’s Germany descends into lawlessness…
‘Losing control of streets’…

Putin preps army of robots…
Nuke Sub Off Brit Coast…
NATO, Russia to hold parallel drills…

I know enough Democrat voters to appreciate how obnoxiously determined they are to vote for Hillary. We met a woman in a cafe yesterday who decided to join into a conversation I was having with my wife. Her issue. Trump treats women badly. The infuriating reality was that she knew no facts about anything. No facts at all about any of the policy matters that will determine the future of the Western world. We are staring at the fall of the American Republic and she is worried only about the sexual practices of alpha males. No analogy with Bill and Hillary’s enabling would even be entertained. My wife even brought up Bob Hawke and his womanising, but she was determined not to be dissuaded by anything anyone might say.

Yet it really is the policy differences that matter. For a rundown of what those differences are you can go to WHERE CLINTON AND TRUMP STAND – ON EVERY MAJOR ISSUE [which has now disappeared from the web]. Just looking at the list of issues ought to terrify anyone, and then there are Hillary’s policy positions which are inferior to Trump’s in every case.

If the election were held today, Donald Trump would win.

Welcome to Idiocracy

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There are 6.5 million people living in Victoria.

If 10% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 650,000 people.

If 1% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 65,000 people.

If 0.1% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 6,500 people. That is one person in 1000.

If 0.01% of the population had the CV-19, that would be 650 people. That is one person in 10,000.

The actual number of people in Victoria who now have the CV-19 is now 121. That is 0.002% of the population, one person in 50,000.

The trouble is we may be living in an Idiocracy which is why Daniel Andrews is premier. What is an idiocracy?

A dystopian world where mankind has embraced anti-intellectualism, and society is devoid of traits such as intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, justice, and human rights.

And that’s apparently just how we like it. See the trailer for Idiocracy and then think about modern Seattle. Or perhaps we could just look around at our own willingness to lock ourselves up in our own self-constructed modern penal colony (if you will pardon the expression).

And it may not just be us. This is from the US: The blind continuing panic over COVID-19.

With totalitarian Democratically-controlled cities and states across the nation now imposing odious rules requiring the wearing of masks at all times, based entirely on emotion and symbolism with absolutely no reliance on the actual science that says masks are not only useless against a virus like COVID-19, they could be medically harmful to the user, I think it is time to do a little science journalism and illustrate again the absurdity of this situation.

First, the Wuhan flu epidemic is clearly ending, as shown by the graph above. This graph, based on numbers from this site, shows that the disease reached its peak sometime near the start of May. Since then its threat has been declining steadily, until it reached today the lowest number of deaths since March, only 285.

Right now the chances of you catching COVID-19 and dying from it are practically nil, even if you live in densely populated states like New York, where only 14 people died yesterday from the virus.

Second, as predicted by some scientists, the lockdowns, social distancing, and silly symbolic mask use did nothing to stretch out the epidemic or flatten the curve. These scientists, ignored by politicians and the mainstream press, had predicted it would be a seasonal flu, dying out come summer, and that it would last from six to eight weeks, as it has done in every country where it has arrived, regardless of any government action.

That is exactly what the Wuhan flu has done. After eight weeks it is now fading away, like all such seasonal diseases.

Third, the numbers on this graph are certainly inflated. The total deaths in the U.S. assigned to the Wuhan flu as of today is just over 114,000. Based on numerous reports (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), we can estimate that this number is inflated from 25% o 50%.

Personally, it’s nice to know that the Middle Ages have not gone away and we are only moments away from burning our first witches. Of course, we have better lighting and heating, but really, given everything you see around you, how long do you think any of that is going to last?

The current wars

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As for us, we’re off to the movies tonight while we still can. This is from our dummkopf premier:

“It is unacceptable that families anywhere in our state can, just because they want this to be over, pretend that it is,” he said.

“It is pretty clear that behind closed doors … they are not practising social distancing.”

According to the hysterics at the Oz – the headline reads “hotspot state threatens to stall nation’s coronavirus recovery” – the number of active cases in Victoria is 121 [not deaths but active cases] out of a population of 6.5 million.

Meanwhile we are off to see The Current War while we are still permitted to use electricity – proper social distancing will, however, be observed:

Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse — the greatest inventors of the industrial age — engage in a battle of technology and ideas that will determine whose electrical system will power the new century. Backed by J.P. Morgan, Edison dazzles the world by lighting Manhattan. But Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla, sees fatal flaws in Edison’s direct current design. Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on risky and dangerous alternating current.

Oh my goodness, AC turns out to be “risky and dangerous”. Why weren’t we told?

AND NOW HAVING SEEN THE FILM: Normally they say before some movie about some historic event that it is “based on true events” or something like that. This one went even further into the realm of whimsy by saying that it had been “inspired by” actual events. No point in throwing in spoilers although I do provide some kind of judgement at the end. For the most part, though, I will give some of the backstory via an article about how the movie was put together: How Martin Scorsese Saved ‘Current War’ From Harvey Weinstein.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon finally gets to release his version of his long-in-the-making “The Current War.”

The film, about the competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, was originally set to be distributed by the Weinstein Company after Harvey Weinstein recut it, much to Gomez-Rejon’s chagrin. To make matters worse, Weinstein premiered the movie at the Toronto Film Festival in 2017.

“It was incredibly painful,” Gomez-Rejon tells Variety. “Because you go up on stage and you’re representing the cast and crew who took this journey with you, and you know deep down in your heart that you haven’t been allowed to give your best. Or you give your best under those conditions and it’s not good enough.”

The film was almost shelved when the Weinstein Company shuttered following sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein.

But on Monday night in New York City at AMC Lincoln Square, Gomez-Rejon premiered “The Current War: Director’s Cut.” “I wasn’t sure the film would ever come out, which was heartbreaking,” the film’s screenwriter Michael Mitnik said….

According to Gomez-Rejon, the most important edit has been a reworking of Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Edison, whose fierce fight against Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to ensure the supremacy of DC electric power was softened in Weinstein’s cut.

“I unapologetically let Benedict’s portrayal of Edison go to the dark side, instead of trying to make him likable,” Gomez-Rejon said. “I think you have to trust an audience. And because we let him do that, his portrayal juxtaposed with the work that Michael Shannon does, builds authentic tension. Now you have a movie that’s worthy of that title.”

Spoiler alert: I don’t know if this can be said any longer, but I think I might have preferred the original cut. The film is essentially a face-off between Edison and Westinghouse, with one the good guy and the other the villain. Also could have emphasised just a bit more how creative entrepreneurial geniuses make the world we inhabit. I could also have done without the 21st century neglected-wife theme. And the jumble of events was really irritating – I recalled in a vague sort of way most of them but the crude use of these events to emphasise modern ideologies was a real downer for me. But should you see it? My wife did think it was beautifully filmed. The present version is 30% at Rotten Tomatoes but we both happily watched it to the end (but it was also the first film we’d seen in three months). The 2017 version was 60% for critics and 79% for the audience. The “director’s cut” is not necessarily an improvement.

Anyway, very pleased to be back at the movies, Dopey Dan notwithstanding.

The dumbest generation

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I assume that there are occasionally sensible arguments available to those on the left and especially among those who are working to end the Trump presidency, but so far I have not found a single one. There is a loss of any sense of the possible, an inability to accept that others have a valid point of view and to comprehend things from their perspective. They are worse than two year olds in the midst of a tantrum. I like the video above – “I Am A White Man And I’m Sorry” – since it highlights that no one will ever live in a world of perfection, but also that while black lives matter, and that the world has created havoc on many occasions, the civic culture that originated from within European civilisation has created benefits for the entire world for which there seems little gratitude, especially among many of the descendants of that same European civilisation. Have these people never heard of Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan?