Scattershots – 25oct20 (updated 28oct20)

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

George Rebane

Exciting times, youngest granddaughter Fi just gave birth to Maybelle at Sierra Memorial to our fifth great-grandchild. Daddy Shawn was there to catch it on the first bounce or sooner. They’re not allowing visitors during these trying times, so our family's welcoming committee will have to form when the new mama and baby get discharged. Oh well.

Dodgers v Rays at 2-2. From the record, the chances that the winner of the 2-2 game goes on to win the series is 65% or about two out of three. I dug up this stat to see how close it matched the chances for two equally capable teams each having a 50-50 chance of winning a subsequent game. Going into the 3-2 game, the ‘3’ team has a 75% chance of taking the series, and the ‘2’ team’s chance is 25%. So the record book’s 65% stat of actual 3-2 winners is a mite low, but still commanding. Were we to do a little bit of probability math and compute what the actual probability of the series champ winning the subsequent games that yield the recorded 65% stat, we would get 41%, or about two out of five, as the probability of winning each subsequent game. This says that during the history of baseball, winners of the 2-2 games, those who went on to win the series 65% of the time, were actually the poorer of the two teams who just managed to make it to the 2-2 game score in the series. That explains that if they were better to at least be 50-50 equal with the other team, they would have won the series 3 out of 4 times instead of 2 out 3 times. Throw a brainbone around that.

[26oct20 update] The DJA is down 2.50% (707 points) as I write; supposedly on fears that there will be no stimulus bill, Nancy won’t allow it, and the "uptick" of C19 cases. A week before the election, and things are looking dim for President Trump and the Republicans. It reminds me again of the difference between our polarized politics. One side has a tougher row to hoe since it bases its message on building and growing the fortunes of Americans. And that’s hard, especially when the other side does all it can to diminish, dampen, and destroy the opportunities for all, save their elites – especially their black constituents whom they have had in the bag since the Great Society days. It’s much harder to build than to tear down. With all this news the Democrats are dancing in the streets.

The WH correctly maintains that we will “defeat” C19, but we “cannot control it”. Unfortunately, to most people this will seem like a conundrum – how can we defeat something we can’t control? Of course, the Dems and their lamestream media will make the most out of this statement, claiming it’s proof of Trump’s failed C19 response policy. Those more used to critical thought realize that we have managed to defeat (with vaccines and therapeutics) many diseases in the sense that we can go on with our lives in a normal manner without the ability to control when and where any such disease will again turn up. The list of such defeated but uncontrolled bugs and viruses is long. This statement from the WH is meant to promote getting back to normal sooner than later, but that’s not how it will be spun to the all-believing hoi polloi. Sad, but it is what it is.

A new study proclaims that “2.5 Million Person-Years of Life Have Been Lost Due to COVID-19 in the United States”. We read (here) that Harvard Medical School geneticist Stephen Elledge, says he did the analysis to correct "the false impression that the impact on society of these deaths is minimal" because they are concentrated among the elderly. Actually, Dr Elledge misses the point completely with his mathematical manipulation of C19 mortality statistics. His study does not consider who actually suffers the loss of so many million life-years lost. By any known metric our society (and world) is not lacking for the billions of life-years lost through whatever causes. However, one can instead make the case that our society and world (i.e. the aggregate cohort of survivors) do suffer today from too many life-years lived. (more here)

[27oct20 update] Rebane Doctrine re status of country correctly summarized in ‘The American Experiment is on Life Support’ by Andrew Michta, dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. And then there’s our eternally confused progressive Union columnist Darrell Berkheimer, in whose ‘Why does ‘socialism is bad’ myth continue?’ he demonstrates again that he understands neither socialism, capitalism, America’s governance, nor human nature. The ways he achieves this state of ignorance are too many to count.

Thanksgiving 2020 is cancelled for all intents and purposes. Gov Newsom has done it again. In our progressives' search for ever more ignorant, harmful, and useless public policies, this 9oct20 ‘Guidance for Private Gatherings’ from the California Health and Human Services Agency takes the cake. But not to worry. Give it a couple of days, and an even more stupid one will soon be coming down from the heights of Mt Sacramento. (H/T to reader)

Thousand plus looters rampage through Philadelphia stores “for hours” as a smattering of assembled police stand by and do nothing (more here). Jim Kenney, Philadelphia’s Democratic mayor, saw fit to order no enhanced police presence as leftwing rioters ransacked store after store. The message to fellow Democrat mayors is clear – no need to enforce the law and take a political hit from the Left, since the Democratic leadership and the lamestream media will do its job of calling the whole thing a ‘peaceful protest’ and sweep the rest under its self-censoring teppich.