There is nothing surprising about this to people who have been following it, but it’s certainly confirming a lot of what has been suspected.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Hypertension
It’s pretty clear that those most at risk are those with other underlying conditions (most notably, I think, obesity and diabetes, which themselves often go hand in hand).
High blood pressure is one of them, but has anyone seen any numbers that indicate that it can be in and of itself? I’d bet that the rate of bad outcomes for someone (like me) who only has hypertension is pretty low. The reason that it is listed as one of the underlying conditions is that large number of people with other condition also have it. That is, other than my slightly superannuated condition and that, I don’t think I’m at high risk.
Bankruptcy Laws
Thoughts on their unsung success in America.
Taking Down The Hair Salons
…with an MRAP (yes, I know it was a bar, big deal). One of the many terrible things that the Clinton administration did was to give military hardware to local LEOs.
The New WH Press Spokeswoman
This is the best we’ve seen since Dana Perino (and very easy on the eyes to boot). Unfortunately for the media, there aren’t enough burn wards open due to the coronavirus.
The Openers
Why they’re winning. The “elites” (as has been the case for many years now) have not covered themselves with glory here.
Ferguson’s Imperial Model
A code review.
Good lord.
This reminds me an awful lot of the code that was leaked from CRU. S**t climate coding has done a lot of economic damage, but nowhere near as rapidly as this has, with tens of thousands of deaths to boot.
[Update a few minutes later]
A devastating conclusion:
All papers based on this code should be retracted immediately. Imperial’s modelling efforts should be reset with a new team that isn’t under Professor Ferguson, and which has a commitment to replicable results with published code from day one.
On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.
Same with climate modeling. Get it out of the universities. Particularly Penn State.
[Update a while later]
What Ferguson’s booty call tells us about our “elites.”
[Friday-afternoon update]
The model that panicked the world was junk.
Biden’s Edge Over Trump
…has evaporated.
Polls this early don’t mean that much, particularly when it’s “registered,” not likely voters. And it doesn’t take into account the enthusiasm factor. I think that there are a lot more people who would crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump than for Biden.
Academia
If it gets a bailout, it should only be under these conditions.
The loan program needs a complete overhaul, beyond these suggestions.
The Obama Administration Hit On Flynn
A guide to what we now know.