The Frankish Reich

When does Leslie Frazier's leave of absence end?

Yes, you do seem to be smarter than liberal morons. Good for you and your family. I saw Rand Paul on one of the Sunday morning news shows. He said something like this about the CDC: "they think they know better than you about vaccines." Yes! They do! They know better than the average person because it is their job to know better than the average person. You know who knows better about the dangers of nuclear materials than you or me? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission experts. You know who knows better than you or me about acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water? The EPA! We're no longer in the Question Authority bumper sticker world. We're in the Dismiss Authority or Assume Authority Wants to Make Us Subservient to Something or Other world. It's a good thing to encourage debate and to question the advice of official boards and commissions; it is foolhardy to dismiss it, or even worse to ascribe some kind of sinister motivations to it. And that's where we are. Most annoying: we know Trump doesn't believe his own Administration's bs. We know that he believes Operation Warp Speed was a great achievement (it was!). But he's more concerned about retaining power (or holding off another RFK Jr challenge to his anointed successor) than he is about telling the truth here.

I just said all this nonsense started with granola types. So are you proud that you're following their lead right off the cliff?

One of the other threads reminded me of this: is Lee Davinci's star continuing to rise? Sadly, it seems that he is now down to 3 monthly listeners on Spotify. Go MAGA, go get a real job?

Zach Wilson time! It's gonna happen sooner or later with Tua's fragility. And I do think Zach has a second act here ...

And if Fields continues to play well - at least like he did at the start of last season and the first half today - there will be a good debate about whether the Steelers should've just stuck with him. I've been long on Fields for some time now ...

The Hep B thing is really just about when it should be administered, not if. So I can accept that as a reasonable debate. But the other crap is, well, crap.

Probably a first game phenomenon, but all of these old QB/new team moves seem to be working. Except Russell Wilson.

Aren't they already kind of halfway there?

So Roger Stone, the felonious lifestyle cu*ckold who literally has the face of Nixon tattooed on his back, now warns us of the dangers of using the CIA for improper purposes. Delicious, Roger! Delicious! https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/05/nixon-helms-cia-jfk-assassination-00037232

Trump said food prices were going to come down immediately. He was right! 5 bucks, baby! MAGA, MAHA, all of it is coming together in one glorious meal deal.

You expect people to read their own links? A totally unfair double standard!

Yep, he never lost the arm. Early returns: his flame out with the Jets last year was more about the Jets than it was about Rodgers.

I'm gonna have to disagree. When you're talking about a head-on collision the force of the impact will be governed by F=ma. Force = mass x acceleration. So all other things being equal, the bigger the player, the greater the force. Of course, that's only a subset of the football collisions. But still, that always struck me as why some of the worst collisions we see are not with smaller players but with big/fast players. The classic old kickoff play with the linebacker/fullback size guys running right at each other at high speed. So ... I'm not sure the little guys have, on average, shorter careers than the bigger guys at the same position. Think of the beating the battering ram type RB takes vs. the small RB.

I'm guessing all of this nonsense started with a valid point, a rather lefty point coming from the granola faction. I learned this a long the same point a long time in an epidemiology class: in modern medicine we focus way too much on infectious disease and not enough on the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in highly developed nations. Things like cancer and heart disease, which are highly correlated with lifestyle factors. Valid point, based in large part on developed nations having largely eradicated deadly infectious diseases. (AIDS emerged in the 1980s to upset the applecart, but still.) And we did this through public health improvements (no more cholera!) and vaccination advancements. So maybe the CDC should spend more time and money on the non-infectious disease causes of morbidity/mortality. So more on diet/nutrition. More on environmental policy (which is RFK Jr.'s entry point into this hole world). More on ever "gun violence" and car crashes. Valid points. So maybe all this lifestyle stuff is really where the action is, and we can all move on from that whole infectious disease/vaccination obsession of public health. Maybe if we just let that ride and get rid of artificial dyes in our foods and eat healthier and ban glyphosate (that one remains strangely off the map thanks to the big ag lobby) and other chemicals in/on/around our foods we'll reach Peak Health and Happiness. Invalid point. It ignores the fact that we are now able to concentrate on non-infectious disease because we've been so good at eradicating a lot of infectious disease! It is the same thing as the famous stupid NYT headline: "Despite lowering crime rates, record numbers remain imprisoned." Only this time it's "Despite infectious disease deaths being way down, we still spend more on preventing infectious disease than ever." Invalid. Stupid. Illogical.

The root of the problem: RFK Jr. is not just skeptical of childhood vaccines. He is skeptical of the entire basis of infectious disease advancements since Pasteur: the germ theory of disease. Incredible that someone this stupid, this ignorant is in this position of power. https://www.wsj.com/health/rfk-jr-what-is-terrain-theory-66b4c660?mod=hp_listc_pos2 Germ theory, Kennedy wrote in his 2021 book “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” is at the heart of his critique of American healthcare. “The ubiquity of pasteurization and vaccinations are only two of the many indicators of the domineering ascendancy of germ theory as the cornerstone of contemporary public health policy,” he wrote in the book. “A $1 trillion pharmaceutical industry pushing patented pills, powders, pricks, potions and poisons and the powerful professions of virology and vaccinology … fortifies the century-old predominance of germ theory.” In his book, Kennedy refers to Béchamp approvingly as a “miasmist”—a believer in miasma theory, which predates both germ and terrain theory. It is the belief that disease is caused by bad air, or something poisonous in the environment. There is firm consensus in the public-health community that environmental factors like air quality, as well as good nutrition, are important for good health, but these factors do not reliably protect people from getting infected by viruses.

How many manufacturing jobs have we gained since "Liberation Day?" Last I checked (before the new bad jobs report): -40,000. That's right - negative 40K.

I kept following the NBA, but I never, ever watched the Clippers, which was really easy to do in the 70s/80s/90s. And they screwed over San Diego just like they did Buffalo.

Yeah. And I'm the guy who says Josh Allen is the second coming of half-Filipino Roman Gabriel.

This injury seems to have nothing to do with bullying. But it is sad for the league since watching Caitlin is fun - for me, conjuring my very early sports memories of watching Pete Maravich - and now people like me have even one less reason to occasionally tune in.

I knew you'd enjoy the extended ... umm ... metaphor ...

Treating alien criminals (alleged alien criminals - what happens when there's a US citizen or permanent resident or economic migrant/asylum seeker on board?) like an invading army? We've never done that, and for good reason.

And a muted response from Trump. It's almost as if those BLS numbers are solid! Plus they finally got through his thick head that if he wants the Fed to cut rates, it's useful to show that the economy could use a little kick in the ass.

That emotional scar has never healed for me. McAdoo, Buff State's Randy Smith, Ernie D., John Shumate. Jack Ramsay. Damn. What could've been.