Home » Open thread 5/7/21

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Open thread 5/7/21 — 30 Comments

  1. I am Spartacus. I noticed that you are involved in a project to uncover the voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. I’ve done an analysis of the votes in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin using the NYT/Edison data. It’s pretty clear to me that the same hand was guiding the fraudulent vote counting in all four states and used the same methods in all four races.

    If you are interested I’d like to send you my analysis. I’d be interested in joining your project too. You can contact me at c h a o s d a d 1 9 4 7 at gmail dot com.

  2. I’ve taken a break from politics for the past two months. It was a conscious decision because it was becoming unhealthy for me, my marriage and my friendships. So, I started watching BBC mystery TV shows, like a large scale palette cleanser. I can’t get over how much better the BBC productions are than US productions, at least as far as mystery TV.

    The characters all seem like real people rather than abnormally attractive hyper competent characters portrayed by young, beautiful people who are obviously regurgitating scripts that make them sound intelligent. Not saying the British actors are necessarily smarter than the American actors but they’re definitely better at portraying smart.

    A particular favorite is the show called New Tricks: Three, older retired inspectors from the London Metropolitan PD are asked to join an unsolved/cold case squad. A terrific show. Genuinely interesting and likable older guys who solve mysteries with their ‘old school’ tactics but also with the benefit of DNA and other advances.

    Death in Paradise is a goofier show but also pretty entertaining.

  3. “So, I started watching BBC mystery TV shows, like a large scale palette cleanser.”

    They’re not available on public TV anymore because of a “MeToo” scandal but the Dr. Blake Mysteries from Australia are really good.

    Mike

  4. Can someone tell me if Joe Biden can legally waive US patent protections on the US-developed COVID vaccines?

  5. Fractal Rabbit
    George Gently is a great show, albeit darker than New Tricks and Death in Paradise.
    Midsomer Murders is also very good. You can’t help but love the Barnaby’s (both old and new).
    And for an all-around dramedy, Doc Martin.

  6. Murder in Suburbia gives us Caroline Catz before she met Doc Martin and got a West Country accent.

  7. Murder in Suburbia gives us Caroline Catz before she met Doc Martin and got a West Country accent.

    She’s from Manchester. She’s done series set in Cornwall, York, and suburban London, so she’s learned a number of accents.

  8. Xylourgos,

    I was a fan of Rumpole back in the day. My dad used to watch it, and call my mom SWMBO. That’s where I first decided to read H. Rider Haggard.

    Steph,

    Not sure if George Gently is for me. I avoid the darker stuff. Next on my list is Father Brown.

  9. A thank-you video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, featuring burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), which live in burrows (typically prairie dog holes) in grasslands, deserts, rangelands, or any other open dry area with low vegetation. Burrowing owls have developed long legs that enable them to sprint along the ground as well as fly in search of prey. Sometimes described as looking like “beer cans on stilts,” these owls can be found in Florida, Texas, and other Southwestern states.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzcir4qhilg&ab_channel=CornellLabofOrnithology

  10. SWMBO. She Who Must Be Obeyed. Love it! Seems like a rule for all of us of a certain age. What is the connection to H. Rider Haggard?

  11. Fantome: No WAY is Bill Gates ever going to look that good! Nor does he have have to, with his fortune!

    PA CAT: Loved that burrowing owl video. The owl is my totem.

  12. Xylourgos,

    Ayesha, or She Who Must Be Obeyed, was the 2,000 year old sorceress of Haggard’s novel ‘.She’

  13. Mr. Rabbit, or may I call you Fractal,
    ================================
    The characters all seem like real people rather than abnormally attractive hyper competent characters …Not saying the British actors are necessarily smarter than the American actors but they’re definitely better at portraying smart.

    A particular favorite is the show called New Tricks: Three, older retired inspectors from the London Metropolitan PD…
    ================================
    Huge ‘thumbs up’ for New Tricks. About the realistic looking actors, Amanda Redman isn’t my idea of gorgeous, but she’s definitely attractive, in a real-life way.

    No mention of Foyle’s War yet, so I’ll just slide that in.

    Father Brown and Grantchester: I think I’ll just avoid English villages from now on.

  14. Let us not fail to pay homage to Morse! Oxford’s brilliant, bibulous, bachelor inspector, as embodied so popularly by the late John Thaw. Featuring that deliciously clever theme music whose notes tap out Morse code for…Morse, of course. “Endeavor”, a prequel titled with the forename Morse so studiously sidesteps, is likewise quite smart and well acted. (Thaw’s daughter has a recurring role as a cop-friendly journalist.)

  15. I enjoyed DCI Banks, and Scott and Bailey. The latter is the full estrogen option, though quite good. You can count the number of redeemable male characters on one hand and have two or three fingers left over.
    _____

    Uh oh. Vaccine realities are being shaken out.
    Under 40s to be offered alternative to AZ vaccine

    And which safer alternatives are being offered? Moderna and Pfizer, of course.

  16. I used to work in what was then called Irian Jaya, and what is now called, Papua. It’s the western half of the island shared with Papua New Guinea. It was by far the most exotic place I ever worked. My topographic map was almost as big as my office, and yet it had numerous blank spots on it, never been mapped. Although it was almost on the equator, there were glaciers. An old airstrip across the bay, where we mined for construction gravel, still had Japanese Zeros sitting off the end of an old WWII runway. A wild place. The wildlife biologists go there and find dozens of new species, almost every year.

  17. Can someone tell me if Joe Biden can legally waive US patent protections on the US-developed COVID vaccines? — Kate

    I don’t really know. I suspect domestic patent rights are different than international rights, with the latter being the issue at hand. This article is not bad.

    https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/biden-vaccine-patent-waiver-pharma-opposition/599704/

    The WTO agreement on international patent rights is called TRIPS and India and S. Africa have been lobbying to gut it for purely opportunistic reasons for a while. So naturally the Biden admin. is on board with trashing U.S. intellectual property rights. I’m guessing Biden can do it.

    Interestingly, the Pfizer vaccine was mostly developed with the intellectual property of BionTech, a German company, and Germany is not on board with this.

  18. om–

    Thank you for the info about burrowing owls in the Pacific Northwest. I first encountered them when my mother retired to Florida and I got interested in them. Here’s a video of some Florida burrowing owls that includes their distinctive call:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gdU6FHSlXk&ab_channel=photoguy73

    As the photographer notes, these owls aren’t particularly shy of humans, which makes them appealing to backyard bird watchers.

  19. @TommyJay:

    The Pfizer BionTech vaccine has a pretty convoluted manufacturing process. Part of it happens in Europe and part of it in the USA – as in precursors made here then shipped there for more work, and so on. Anyway FedGov has immense powers when it wants to lean on foreign entities — nice bunch of operating bank accounts you got there, pity if every transaction generated a million pages of KYC compliance and an IRS raid plus Interpol Red Notices on your C-Suite and Board(s).

    Spot on about the Indian angle. Indian generic drug manufacturing billionaires will be slavering over the opportunity to get their hands on these drugs royalty-free.

  20. Didn’t know that some owls burrow. Such beautiful birds!

    Hiking in Australia many years ago, saw a flock of magpies land in a tree and scare a perched owl to death (literally). Flock landed… much squawking, owl falls out of tree. We went over and had a look after magpies moved on because such a curious thing to see. What still sticks in my mind was just how feather light (duh) and skinny the owl was underneath all that plumage. All Hat and No Cattle. Unless you’re a small rodent, I guess.

  21. I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

    For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

    Fair enough. But now that you’ve done gone and mentioned Race, there’s this David Reich fellow at Harvard…

    https://www.takimag.com/article/reichs_laboratory_steve_sailer/

    Worth reading. Reich is a bit precious and terrified of being canceled. So he does some cowardly pre-emptive backstabbing. But lots of good material.

    PS: Appears that the race usually does go to the swift and the battle to the strong. Who woulda thunk?

  22. “Usually” is the key word, Zaphod; there are always exceptions.
    However –
    “The Race Is Not Always to the Swift, Nor the Battle to the Strong; But That Is the Best Way to Bet”

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/

    The “riches to men of understanding” depends on the substance of what is understood. I think The Prophet was referring to the ancient equivalent of our over- and mis-educated elites, who think they are wise because they have diplomas, and are entitled thereby to be remunerated more handsomely than is (or used to be) the case.
    “nor yet favour to men of skill” is pretty much a description of our era, in which affirmative action has escalated to cover every victim-class under the sun.

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