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The MoA Week In Review – Open Thread 2020-87
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Venezuela:
By then the Defense Department had also been sharing with Venezuelans a secret plan to foment insurgencies called Operation X Zone.
It all casts doubts on the narrative claiming that Goudreau operated as a freelancer in a vacuum in one of the most closely watched areas of the world.
Covid-19:
Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is common and occurs early after illness onset. Persons should self-isolate immediately at the onset of COVID-like symptoms, at the time of testing as a result of a high risk exposure, or at time of a positive test result, whichever comes first. All household members, including the index case, should wear masks within shared spaces in the household.
Covid-19 in German language:
France bad, headchoppers good?
Use as open thread …
Covid-19 is a dangerous disease and I take precautions to protect myself. However, the public depiction of the disease in the media and the actions being taken by most governments cannot but raise some very serious questions.
Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Nov 1 2020 18:14 utc | 16
THIS! Thank you for all your post Nathan! I was just about contributing some information that ties in precisely with your concern:
COVID-19: Council adopts a recommendation to coordinate measures affecting free movement (13-10-2020)
Based on this data, the ECDC should publish a weekly map of EU member states, broken down by regions, to support member states in their decision-making. Areas should be marked in the following colours:
- green if the 14-day notification rate is lower than 25 and the test positivity rate below 4%
- orange if the 14-day notification rate is lower than 50 but the test positivity rate is 4% or higher or, if the 14-day notification rate is between 25 and150 and the test positivity rate is below 4%
- red if the 14-day notification rate is 50 or higher and the test positivity rate is 4% or higher or if the 14-day notification rate is higher than 150
- grey if there is insufficient information or if the testing rate is lower than 300
You will notice how the measures to be taken by individual countries are absolutely (as in 100%) dependent on the worst metric possible according to the demonstrated performance of rtPCR tests. We are being recommended to use the wrong metric! None of us wishes any of our health systems to collapse, however their occupancy objectively varies with the cumulative individual immune response of the population NOT with the precariously measured transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 via rtPCR tests. Remember that the only reason we are worried about virus transmissibility is because of eventual severe developments of the disease in a fraction of the population and a possible breakdown of health systems as a consequence.
The relevant failure of rtPCR testing is its inability to estimate accurately the viral load (let’s not put in question the assumption that viral load is the most important criteria for a severe development of C-19, while also leaving aside aggravating comorbidities). rtPCR testing, under the current state of knowledge, is the equivalent of measuring a patient’s temperature with a thermometer but no doctor knows the average body temperature, and its natural healthy interval, nor would the thermometer provide a number on a scale, merely reporting that a patient has something other than “0”. This would constitute a USELESS thermometer.
From the same recommendation as above, quote:
Free movement restrictions
Member states should not restrict the free movement of persons travelling to or from green areas. [LOL – great opening, they know full well under these criteria there will be barely any in the next months]
If considering whether to apply restrictions, they should respect the differences in the epidemiological situation between orange and red areas and act in a proportionate manner. They should also take into account the epidemiological situation in their own territory.
Member states should in principle not refuse entry to persons travelling from other member states. Those member states that consider it necessary to introduce restrictions could require persons travelling from non-green areas to:
- undergo quarantine
- undergo a test after arrival
Member states may offer the option of replacing this test with a test carried out before arrival.
Member states could also require persons entering their territory to submit passenger locator forms. A common European passenger locator form should be developed for possible common use.
“Test, test, test” remember? The above simply becomes arbitrary according to the criteria defined. This is not policy based on solid science! Such arbitrary policies usually serve unstated purposes (I’ll refrain here to expand on those) while throwing some false pretext to the masses in order to seek their consent, exploiting their limited ability to validate the pretext as legitimate science.
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So then… what could be a valid metric that allows us to prevent “eventual severe developments of the disease and a possible breakdown of health systems”? This is the question we should be asking! Myself, I would be satisfied, in substitution of rtPCR testing, with the use of new Hospitalizations, ICU and even Deaths as much better metrics, since these are true fractions of the disease development against any population and even allow to calibrate for its health system performance, much less vulnerable to duplications and false positive accounting.
rtPCR testing is absolutely absurd for the purposes it is being used (ie. country wide government response policy), instead of being limited to clinical diagnostic tool of the individual suspect of some respiratory disease to be used by a qualified practitioner, and, at best, a screening tool to get a handle on local outbreaks (schools, workplaces, residences, etc).
Hanging on this fallacy lies the destruction of most western economies and an ominous verge into the police state, neither are overstatements given what we have seen so far.
Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 1 2020 23:49 utc | 55
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 2 2020 5:04 utc | 83 The question I’m addressing is HOW CREDIBLE a theory is after it is show to have predictive power.
“When you say, it’s more credible but “it remains a theory”, it sound very much like the dismissive phrase ‘it’s just a theory’.”
I don’t care what you think it sounds like. This is basic science. All theories remain as theories because science does not deal in absolute truth. As I said, they become “accepted” once there is no countervailing evidence. This is different from *observable facts*. You don’t, by your admission, have any “observable facts.” You have “close observations” of historical facts – not current facts – and “accepted theories”. And the “illusion of democracy” is not an “accepted theory.” Obviously. And even it were, it doesn’t necessarily follow logically that the Deep State wants Trump to win over Biden. You have no syllogism that establishes that from that premise.
“My theory is not simply a hunch, a guess, or random pick.”
I never said it was. In fact, I said it was a very plausible and credible theory. It’s just not a *proven* theory – and isn’t likely to be, absent someone leaking Deep State files proving it is.
“That is what gives it predictive power.”
But the prediction has yet to be proven true. Citing your theory as having “predictive power” in advance of the prediction coming true is ridiculous.
“And I suggest that if the prediction comes to pass then it credibility of the theory is boosted by how far from consensus view was the predicted outcome.”
And I repeat that there is no “consensus view” about Trump’s probability of re-election. The Democrats think he can be beaten. The Republicans think he can’t. There’s hardly a consensus. Cite some statistical poll that shows the majority of people believe Trump won’t be elected. Here, I’ll cite one that says the opposite.
Back in May, 55% of voters thought Trump would win. A more recent Gallop poll shows the following:
The poll asked, regardless of whom they personally support, who Americans think will win in November. Gallup found that 56 percent of Americans expect Trump to win over Biden, while 40 percent think Biden will win.
“The prediction of a Trump victory is not consistent with the average of recent national presidential vote-preference polls, which show Biden with a significant lead, but it is consistent with Americans’ expectation of a victory for the incumbent president in every race in which one has been running,” Gallup said in their analysis of the results.
While in fact, a recent Gallop poll says most people don’t think he deserves to win:
The majority of U.S. registered voters, 56%, believe President Donald Trump does not deserve to be reelected, while 43% say he does….
The percentage of voters who currently say Trump deserves to be reelected matches his latest overall job approval rating from the same poll. Gallup’s previous measures of Trump’s reelection deservedness were each within three points of his approval rating, and the significance to reelection is clear. As Gallup reported in May: “Historically, all incumbents with an approval rating of 50% or higher have won reelection, and presidents with approval ratings much lower than 50% have lost.”
As would be expected, nearly all Republicans (93%) say the president deserves to be reelected, while few Democrats (3%) agree. Among independents, 36% say Trump deserves reelection and 61% say he does not.
So I don’t see any such consensus. I see people who think he shouldn’t win – but will anyway. Historically they are probably correct. But that proves nothing, either.
“Is the existence of “Deep State” really an extraordinary claim? Is the desire for control and goal-seeking of such an entity really an extraordinary claim?”
No. But the claim that they will and have orchestrated this election to give Trump a “landslide” victory *is*.
One thing I was thinking about earlier is how you seem to not realize just how hard it is to rig a national election in a country this size. The whole Russiagate BS was based on the BS notion that Russia had some means of actually influencing a US election more than the US electorate and media and political parties themselves, and that therefore they actually tried. In reality, of course, the Russian state isn’t that stupid.
I was watching a Russian news panel (with English subtitles) prior to the last Russian election, and they came to the same conclusion regarding their election: that the US is not capable of influencing a Russian election more than the Russians themselves.
A US election is not some city or county election with a couple hundred thousand voters. There are 150 million people voting in 50 states. Even discounting all but the close swing states, it’s still a massive undertaking to actually influence the election over and above the opinions of the actual voters. All the “computer vote fraud” is mostly BS, even though it is relatively easy to hack a voting computer (Disclaimer: I’m not an expert in that, and I haven’t reviewed the current state of play in that area of infosec.) As I mentioned above to someone else, most of the vote rigging today is done well before the election due to voter registration games and redistricting. It’s really hard to change a national election by somehow cramming a few tens or hundreds of thousand of fraudulent votes into a ballot box on election day (or the days before or after) even in swing states. Sure, there are compromised districts and voting officials. There always are. But they have to make enough of an effort to throw the election by at least several percent in order to be sure there is a real effect that matters.
What you haven’t done is make a case for *how* the Deep State has thrown this election for Trump. You simply assume they have – with zero evidence. List the actual measures you think the Deep State has used to *guarantee* the landslide you think is coming.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Nov 2 2020 6:11 utc | 85
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