The Frankish Reich

It isn't productive to respond to comments citing anecdotes ("I know a guy who ...") or conspiracy theories ("they" deliberately seeded US communities with COVID" or "it's all about making money"). People who make those types of arguments aren't swayed. So without responding to individual comments, here's the facts on serious adverse reactions to one of the vaccines (Pfizer). Note that certain serious adverse health events occurred in the placebo group too, sometimes with greater frequency. Because, well, sometimes people get sick, and the vaccine isn't the cause. That's why we do tests with a control/placebo group! Serious Adverse Events Serious adverse events were defined as any untoward medical occurrence that resulted in death, was life-threatening, required inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization, or resulted in persistent disability/incapacity. The proportions of participants who reported at least 1 serious adverse event were 0.6% in the vaccine group and 0.5% in the placebo group. The most common serious adverse events in the vaccine group which were numerically higher than in the placebo group were appendicitis (7 in vaccine vs 2 in placebo), acute myocardial infarction (3 vs 0), and cerebrovascular accident (3 vs 1). Cardiovascular serious adverse events were balanced between vaccine and placebo groups. Two serious adverse events were considered by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as possibly related to vaccine: shoulder injury possibly related to vaccine administration or to the vaccine itself, and lymphadenopathy involving the axilla contralateral to the vaccine injection site. Otherwise, occurrence of severe adverse events involving system organ classes and specific preferred terms were balanced between vaccine and placebo groups.

The problem is this: no one will believe in you - I mean really believe in you - until you show you can knock off the champion. For literally decades it was the Patriots. Then all of a sudden it was the Chiefs. And let's face facts: with the exception of a few quirky games, we weren't in the same class as the Pats until last year, when we were suddenly in a class above them. Likewise we haven't shown the ability to stick with the Chiefs now that they are Kings of the AFC. One signature win, which can come this year in about 4 weeks, and the conventional wisdom changes overnight.

Well, as a starting point it really wouldn't hurt to RTFA.

Excellent summary for the nonscientist of the long history of research into the feasibility of mRNA vaccines. As vaccine skeptics say, yes, this is a new technology in some sense. But in another sense they are completely wrong - we're dealing with a three decades + history of research and technology: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w We should celebrate science and innovation, not be scared of it.

Well, it's in the realm of the possible, but highly, highly unlikely that what you had is COVID-19. At the risk of being pilloried for citing wikipedia, I'll note that the wiki pages do a really good job of summarizing what we know about the timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_2019 And if you hadn't traveled to China around that time, the likelihood is even lower. There's really no way to know for certain since even a positive antibody test after COVID "broke" in March 2020 would be consistent with a later in time exposure. But if you had it in October 2019, you would in fact be the first known COVID 19 patient. Where were you in September/October 2019?

Best choices here: - San Diego: a sympathy choice, and there's money to be made with an NFL team in a vacation destination - San Antonio: big growth area, more business friendly climate than Austin, a little farther from Dallas - OKC and or Tulsa: would slice off some of the Cowboys' base, huge football country, but may have trouble diverting attention from NCAAF - SLC: another huge growth area and about 500 miles to the closest existing team east or west -

this ^ is making too much sense for my fragile disposition. I have this sneaking suspicion that when things no longer make sense - having one of just 32 NFL teams in Buffalo, with Buffalo being roughly the 52nd largest market - they tend to get "corrected." And the correction here would be moving a team. Thankfully the vast majority of larger markets are taken, or they face obstacles like NFL owners and their territorial claims (Cowboys and Austin or San Antonio, Orlando and Jax or Tampa), or there's logistical problems (Canadian cities seemed a no-brainer until COVID hit). But there's money to be made by some group somewhere, and there's more of it outside of Buffalo than inside. Pegulas, don't give in to temptation!

Thanks for posting that PFF scale - I have to look it up every year when folks start referring to PFF grades. I already referred to it on one of the O line threads - all guards and centers rated in the mid-60s, which is why I don't see a whole lot to be gained by swapping out a Boettger for a Feliciano, etc.

Since mid-October 2019? Are you Patient Zero? The guy who ordered the Wuhan Bat Stew two years ago?

Are those PFF grades? I thought that their grades in the 50s were considered poor. Not that I put much stock in a grade after just 30 snaps. Kind of like a MLB hitter after 30 plate appearances. How did Oliver grade out?

Agreed. This is the weirdest, most irrational takeaway from Game 1. Before last season we would have all been decrying how Allen just plain missed a wide open Sanders. You know what? On Sunday Allen just plain missed a wide open Sanders. Doesn't mean bad old Josh is back. But it certainly doesn't mean Sanders was a flop.

I like this thread. As someone noted, completely random. We need a completely random thread. My contribution: given the blocked punt, why don't we use Star as the upback? I've never seen a satisfying answer to the age-old question of "why not sign a morbidly obese guy to be a hockey goalie?" EDIT: I'm not calling you morbidly obese, Mr. Star. Please don't hurt me. You are just the Biggest Bill of the moment.

Maybe the San Antonio Bills c. 2028? You can dream ...

Will they? With the phased introduction, I very much doubt it. If the "fully vaccinated" requirement were in place for the next home game, I suppose you'd see after-market prices go down since a lot of people would need to dump tickets right away. But let's track this. Would've been better to start yesterday, but today will do. Lowest priced stubhub tickets for the Dolphins home game Oct 31 (first "fully vaccinated only" game) are $90. Compare: lowest price for the WFT game a week from Sunday is ... $90! Let's see if the 10/31 prices start to drop as non-vaxxers dump tickets. I doubt it ...

No offense, but I take it you don't have kids, or at least haven't had younger kids for a long time. If you did you'd probably know that letting your kids run off by themselves to play with other kids in the neighborhood would make you a pariah at best; a subject of a child protective services investigation at worst. I had other parents criticize me because I let my 12 year old daughter and her friends unaccompanied at the mall under the condition that she sends me a selfie every half hour ...

Is any of the following wrong? 1. The Bills lease Highmark from Erie County. 2. Erie County has mandated vaccines for attendance at Highmark events. 3. The Bills have chosen not to fight that mandate (e.g., as a violation of the terms of their lease); they are implementing it. 4. The remedy for those who do not like it: (a) do not attend events there; and/or (b) vote the current policymakers out of office.

Thank goodness exclusively gay males outnumber exclusively lesbian women by about 4:1! Ahh, I see. Did "they" engineer anti-vaxxers too to selectively weed out the Texas-to-Florida population?

Sometimes I think the problem is that boomers are living too long. We keep hearing about generational wealth - boomers hoarding all of it with millennials and Gen Z left with the scraps we discard. Where do those millenials and Gen Z'ers think that wealth is going when we kick the bucket? The tax man, sure, but whatever's left goes straight to you ...

Well, I agree with you here. Some of for-profit colleges were literally criminal, and they put their students in a financial hole for years, if not permanently. What we need is a little truth telling and tough love for our high school and college students. Choose a career track where there's a need. Stop telling kids to follow their passion. There are some remarkably talented world class athletes and ballerinas out there that can make a living at those things. They are the .001 percent. Get a degree. Work toward being a nurse, or a teacher, or someone who knows medical billing (I know a kid who does that, and his career is off to a fine start). If you're better with your hands than you are with tests, learn a trade. We can't outsource plumbing and wiring to China or India (although we do seem pretty good at bringing in people to America to do those kinds of things). Don't waste time and money - finish a degree in four years. Don't have a family until you can afford it. Live at home if you have to to save money for a down payment (I also know a kid who did that and surprised everyone by buying a house, with his own money, at 28). I just looked up my childhood home in Amherst. Someone bought it for $150,000 in 2019. Zillow says it's worth $200,000 now. There is absolutely nothing "out of reach" about that house for, say, a teacher married to a firefighter, or a nurse married to a UPS driver. That would be exactly the same standard of living as I had growing up. (EDIT: in reality, a whole lot better than what I had - I looked at the Zillow pictures and it's been remodeled to look like one of those HGTV projects; it has a nice deck that wasn't there before; nice sleek appliances that we never had; flat screen TVs ... the standard of living is a lot, lot better in many ways although the physical structure looks much the same from the street). It's not that that "middle class dream" is gone; it's often that kids today find the standard of living that I had to fall short of what they think they deserve. They think they deserve the McMansion, and not when they're 50; they want it when they're in their 20s. I couldn't have it in my 20s either.

No, I'm not all gloom and doom here. Think about the story of the kid I quoted above - the one who dropped out of Bowling Green Univ. to work at Amazon - is a good example. Let's say he set his sights on being a school teacher. An honorable profession, and one that gets you 2.5 months off every summer. The average salary of a teacher in Bowling Green is $54,000. Or lets say he keeps his Amazon job instead, making $15.50/hr full time (about $32,000 a year), and then marries a teacher. That's a household income of $86,000, probably a little lower until the teacher gets established. Let's call it $80,000. The median price of a home in Bowling Green is about $200,000. Kid is living at home; I hope he's saving for a down payment (yeah, right). The mortgage on a $200,000 home, assuming they let him put 10K down with a higher interest rate is about $850/month (principal and interest). Sure there's taxes, but then they have a kid and get the Biden extra monthly $300 to defray that cost. The average family living in Bowling Green is doing perfectly fine! But you know what? You gotta work to get that job. You gotta finish college to get that teaching job. You can't be concentrating on "making music" and "investing in cryptocurrencies" like one of the kids in the article. Study. A little; you don't need to study a lot to get a degree with grade inflation as it is. The middle class lifestyle is right there waiting for you. Student loans? Well, yeah, a bit of a burden at the start, but we'll get you on a payment plan that maxes out at 10% of your income with full loan forgiveness because you're a teacher after 10 years. Take this from an old school boomer who didn't pay his student loans off until he was 53 - life ain't so bad today. I'm sorry college and work are just too damn boring for the kids in the WSJ article. At least mom hasn't kicked your butt out ... yet.

We hear a lot of griping about vaccines, most of which is just that: idle griping. But I gotta admit it: you make a good point here. As we approach the one-year anniversary of approved vaccines, it's time for our U.S. governments and our foreign partners to get this coordinated. Silly arbitrary rules don't do much to encourage faith in government ...

Bingo. If you read the full article, you'll see that some of the examples are exactly this - boys who were decent (not stellar) students who are just too damn lazy to get anything going. We're not talking here about the kid who struggles in school but is great at something mechanical - those boys quickly find their place in one of the good trades. And they have no qualms about giving up and moving back home. This would have been unthinkable for most of the guys I knew in HS ... you moved out, you didn't move back. It was social death. What, like, I'm gonna try to bring a girl back to my mom's house? That's why we moved out! One example from the article: Jack Bartholomew, 19, started his freshman year at Bowling Green State University during the pandemic, taking his classes online. During the first weeks, he said, he was confused by the course material and grew frustrated. Finally, he quit. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I just feel lost.” Mr. Bartholomew’s parents and one older sister have college degrees. He was a solid student in high school and was interested in studying graphic design. Yet while working online from his second-floor bedroom, his introductory courses seemed pointless for how much he was paying, he said. He works 40 hours a week, at $15.50 an hour, packing boxes at an Amazon warehouse not far from his house in Perrysburg, Ohio. It isn’t a long-term job, Mr. Bartholomew said, and he doesn’t know what to do next.

Interesting topic - thanks for posting, Sundancer. I saw this in the WSJ, and as the dad of a recent HS grad - a girl - it kind of fits what I've been observing. The highest achievers tend to be a pretty equal mix of boys and girls. But the tier below that is clearly composed of a majority of girls, and that becomes even more evident when we go down another tier. The stereotype is that girls are obsessed with social media, boys with video games, and they are equally distracted from school work but by different things. From what I've seen, this just isn't true. The video game obsessions completely dominate the life of boys to the detriment of anything else, whereas the girls somehow manage to integrate all that social media obsessiveness into planning their social media obsessed college futures.

All of this is not surprising if you study the win expectancy charts. In general, not knowing anything else (quality of the teams, home vs. road, etc.), a team leading by 10 at halftime will win 85.3% of the time. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/win_prob.cgi?request=1&score_differential=10&quarter=2&field=team Things to keep in mind: - 10 point leads sometimes come from luck (a deflected pass Pick 6, etc.), but luck tends to even out between the favorite and the underdog. So most of the time the team leading by 10 or more is already objectively the better team. - it varies, of course, by WHEN you accrue the 10 point lead. I chose halftime because it's relatively rare for a team to jump out to a 10 point lead in the 1st quarter. - a really good team, of course, isn't behind by 10 or more that often. See the Chiefs in the Mahomes era. So there aren't all that many comeback opportunities, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. Fans tend to overestimate the likelihood of comeback wins. Example: My team down by 9 (the classic "need two scores" when you know you still have time to get the ball back after the first score), 5:00 left, we have the ball on our own 25, 1st and 10. What's that, a 30% chance of coming back for the win (TD + extra point, defensive stop, kick FG, game over)? Nope. It's about 7 percent. Of course it's better if you have a great QB, but it's still not that good.

Correct. The fact that he wasn't President throughout all of 2020 shouldn't exempt him from blame. This fact that the Democratic House passed a huge stimulus bill so the economy wouldn't totally collapse under Trump doesn't mean that they didn't try to use their secret wizardry to tank the economy in 2020 so that Trump would lose. The fact that the Federal Reserve took all types of extraordinary actions to prop up the economy in 2020 doesn't mean that they, as charter members of the Deep State, didn't do everything in their power to make sure Trump lost. Such is the logic of a certain type of person ...