January 30, 2022

Historian Michael Beschloss on President's and Pets!

https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1487537551867011077

People on the thread are pointing out that Lindsay Graham must not count!

January 29, 2022

The 'Blizzard' of January 2022

Looks like it really didn't happen here in New Haven, CT. Maybe three inches on the ground. Supposed to stop around 7PM and it's not coming down hard now. Seems it will just be a minor storm where I am. Somebody must have had some real snow. Glad it's not here.

January 29, 2022

Study concludes Long Covid in children is rare and of short duration.

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1487100181690658816


At last we are getting studies of long Covid with control groups, i.e. actual science.

January 29, 2022

I saw Elizabeth Montgomery was trending on Twitter this morning

apparently for no other reason than that guys used to have a crush on her.
So I thought I would mention it:


https://twitter.com/ASoftstar/status/1487267322515451910

January 28, 2022

Omicron BA.2 in Connecticut

This is hot off the presses:
https://twitter.com/NathanGrubaugh/status/1487063969131077643

I believe what it means is that by means of a fast examination they have determined that their tests show that the original Omicron BA1 in the last couple of days accounts for 85 percent of test results (I believe Dr. Grubaugh test every outpatient in the Yale New Haven system with this method). Until quite recently the original Omicron BA1 was 95 percent of tests. This test can't distinguish between the Delta variant and the BA2 Omicron variant. So the 15 percent could be either, but I'll guess the majority was BA2 (Delta had been hanging around at 5 percent for all of January in CT).
The sequencing which can distinguish between delta and BA2 lags the quick test by a couple of weeks but did show a BA2 case from Jan. 8.
The good news is that despite what is presumed to be an increase in BA2 Connecticut covid cases are still dropping quite rapidly.
I'll continue to watch.

January 28, 2022

Covid Associated Hospitalizations by Vaccine Status ages 50 and above.

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1487067433143705600

Being vaccinated helps a lot. Being boosted helps even more!
These are the just out CDC stats. They go to 12/25. The chart about death rates out the other day went to 12/4.

January 28, 2022

How crypto became the new subprime - Paul Krugman

What’s this crypto thing about? There are many ways to make digital payments, from Apple Pay and Google Pay to Venmo. Mainstream payment schemes, however, rely on a third party — usually your bank — to verify that you actually own the assets you’re transferring. Cryptocurrencies use complex coding to supposedly do away with the need for these third parties.


Skeptics wonder why this is necessary and argue that crypto ends up being an awkward, expensive way to do things you could have done more easily in other ways, which is why cryptocurrencies still have few legal applications 13 years after Bitcoin was introduced. The response, in my experience, tends to take the form of incomprehensible word salad.

Recent developments in El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender a few months ago, seem to bolster the skeptics: Residents attempting to use the currency find themselves facing huge transaction fees. Still, crypto has been effectively marketed: It manages both to seem futuristic and to appeal to old-style goldbug fears that the government will inflate away your savings, and huge past gains have drawn in investors worried about missing out. So crypto has become a large asset class even though nobody can clearly explain what legitimate purpose it’s for.

Investors in crypto seem to be different from investors in other risky assets, like stocks, who consist disproportionately of affluent, college-educated whites. According to a survey by the research organization NORC, 44 percent of crypto investors are nonwhite, and 55 percent don’t have a college degree. This matches up with anecdotal evidence that crypto investing has become remarkably popular among minority groups and the working class.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/cryptocurrency-subprime-vulnerable.amp.html

Why are the riskiest financial products being sold to the least sophisticated investors (Just the way subprime mortgages were marketed)?

January 28, 2022

Alexander's Ragtime Band - Al Jolson and Bing Crosby

January 27, 2022

How it feels to be an Asian at an elite NYC public school.

Tausifa looks at the multihued sea of students pouring through the doors of Brooklyn Tech. She expressed puzzlement that a school where three-quarters of the students are nonwhite could be described as segregated. “I have classes with students of all demographics and skin colors, and friends who speak different languages,” she said. “To call this segregation does not make sense.”


The debate over an entrance exam

Critics of specialized high schools argue these institutions are out of step with the zeitgeist and educational practice. Better to cast aside standardized tests and seek heterogenous classes in neighborhood high schools, they argue, than to cloister top students. Some studies, they say, show struggling students gain from the presence of talented outliers. And the entrance exam has fueled the growth of a private and inequitable tutoring industry.

Those who champion specialized high schools point to alumni who became top scientists. With few exceptions, these were the children of working-class and immigrant families. The best students, they argue, should press as far ahead as brains and curiosity might take them.

The mayor and school officials preside over a system of 1.1 million schoolchildren, they add, in which only half are proficient in math and 24% of Black students fail to graduate. As Americans struggle to stay competitive with other nations in science, technology and mathematics, why obsess about the anti-egalitarian sins of a handful of high-performing schools that hold 6% of high school students?

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/how-it-feels-to-be-an-asian-student-in-an-elite-public-school/

Interesting read about the entrance exam to a few eite NYC high schools that have been a traditional way for minorities to prosper. These days asian students are in the majority of those who attend these schools.

January 26, 2022

The Michael Avenatti Trial

There are so many of them it's hard to keep track. This one is in NYC where he's on trial for stealing Stormy Daniel's book money. I'm following it a bit on twitter. It began Monday. Yesterday afternoon he made the always interesting move to fire his three (How did he get three?) public defenders and represent himself. Unfortunately, he's run into one of those judges who run their courtrooms with a firm hand. Here's a sample;



https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1486435016246796301

Sounds like Stormy testifies tomorrow.