Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

I’m behind in this thread but I’m surprised to see N95 masks recommended to protect others. They are designed to let your breath out freely. They by design protect you but not others. Wear a medical mask with no one way air vent if you want to protect yourself and others. Also the N95’s are more difficult to get a good deal with IME. They are too round. The standard medical masks are a more correct shape for the face and seal very well.

 

I don't consider myself a moron, financially, but in my previous marriage I was in a similar situation. This type of "over-trusting" of finances is unfortunately common. It only 'cost' me about $60k, so I won't make that same mistake twice. I'd be interested to see how the correlation between singly-managed joint tax-filing households that foreclose on a property versus jointly-managed tax-filing separately financial households line up.

 

Indeed. N95 is just a technical description (I forget what it means) of the filtration.

I wear them when among people. No valve. I like to think I am doing something at least for myself and others. I really pity the people who have to use this stuff all day, especially in a hot, hard-work environment. I find they make me sniffle and sneeze. And I had a nose full of spots yesterday.

Still, I'm not complaining, because nobody is stopping me going back to stuck-in-the-house, 24/7!

 

Well Texas' 'All Hat No Cattle' attempt to rope in SCOTUS is done for obvious reasons - who could not see the 'no standing' coming? Politics is for so many a mere matter of belief, empirical reality be damned. I turned on AM radio in the car today. The guy sitting in for Rush (did not catch his name) claimed he knew there was no "clinical" evidence that masks worked because "he is in to that sort of thing". The idiot has it exactly backwards in that clinical evidence is all that we have. There is no arguing with such folks of course. Called my 75 year old mother soon after and asked her if she had been in contact with her internist as when she can get the vaccine. Her doctor told her that she is not recommending the vaccine for anyone "because it's not safe". After ranting about how her doctor must have gotten her med. degree from a Happy Meal, I told my mother to get another doctor on Monday.

It's going to be an interesting next few months.

 

It definitely sucks. The cloth masks are definitely better for comfort though. I forget they're there sometimes. My nose has been turning red pore by pore though. Literally pore by pore. Cest la vie. I've been changing my work routine a little to minimize contact. I've got one guy next to me and two below me. Working in maintenance means lots of tight, poorly ventilated spaces. Honestly, sometimes it's better to wear a mask anyway but I never learn with dust.

It's like... if I have to go up into a ceiling and I want a pair of hands, I can wear the mask and bring them, show them some things. Or I can huff it alone. Getting pretty creative at carrying stuff and hoisting. Finally bought a drill with a skyhook. Got a little pulley system I can hook onto rafters to carry up tools and parts. or hold them somewhere. Fortunately no big part swaps on the air handlers or anything quite like that. Just trying to avoid bringing help when I can, though that sucks a little for them, the two below me are pretty green to repairs of any kind but one is pretty intrepid, so the more I bring him along, the more he ultimately does on his own. Kinda been his test, leaving him heading up smaller tasks with his cohort. There's still a lot I'd like to get him on, but I figure at this point it can wait a little longer. Be surprised if either are here in a year's time anyway... they deserve better pay for what they already do and with finances strained, the raises will be slim. I'm trying to talk one into trade school, he'd make a good electrician. All the more reason to go easy on em afaic. I make more than double the money, so I do more of the work.

All sorts of little things change in this whole deal, I suppose. Makes you realize how much is really at play in your day to day that you completely do not consider.

That's crazy to me. How can you work in medicine and not have at least a basic understanding of how vaccines are developed? Long since cleared safety. It's a sad day when doctors take news stories over the materials available to them within their own profession. She of all people has the tools to learn what it's really about.

But then... I have lost count of the number of times a doctor has prescribed my mom GROSSLY contraindicated meds. Always a fun conversation. "Who's the doctor here?" "...I thought YOU were, until you tried to kill my mother." It is infuriating when that happens because there you have somebody you're counting on for things you can't do, they truly do know more, and yet you are in the position of needing to hold them too a serious error. Too delicate for my liking.

But then... you know? This might be part of why people don't trust experts. We've all had those experiences. Not to mention, even experts are not always soo... transparent, with their interests. Plenty of historic moments where an expert knowingly lied or straight up did not practice diligence before speaking and kinda fucked things on a societal level.

I think people forget that just because an expert gets something wrong does not make YOU more qualified than them. But you wouldn't know that if you hopped over on facebook or youtube these days. I think it's just information overload at this point. People are scared, don't know who to trust, don't even know WHAT to be scared of. New things become urgently relevant overnight, and somehow your average person is supposed to learn about it quickly... with our media landscape, that's a mountain of stress. And I think that shows in the way people handle things, the types of ideas they get. Really goes both ways here. It's not just for the 'anti-' nutbags. I know I'm feeling pretty drained, and probably process things poorly more often than I'd like.

 

What I tend to forget is that doctors are scientists too.

Of course, some of them seem to have forgotten that. Just as some have also forgotten that they took up the profession to heal and help, not just because of the pay. A good quack might earn more than a good doctor. Not that I want them to be blind to everything but allopathic medicine. I'm pleased that many of them are more broad-minded now. But the letters M.D. certainly sell well in the quackery worlds. Betrayal!

 

Well no, not really. From a big picture evidence based medicine (i.e. "scientific") is a relative new development in medicine. There is in awful lot of "art" in medicine, and simple clinical observation that is merely "correlated" experience without any rigour/tested hypothesis.

Beyond this there are the individual factors. Some doctors have a "scientific" mind, and others don't. Some are good at their jobs, and others not so much. Some are eccentric and stubborn, and some are downright sociopathic. They are just people...

 

Well, what I mean is that they all had to go through a huge dose of biology and chemistry, and how things work from that scientific standpoint. Past that, some may think of themselves as scientists more than others; some might think scientifically more than others.

 

It's funny locally where I am at. My local friends at the Tobacco Shop where hard core supporting Texas since they believe they were cheating in those four states. I asked for proof in GA since the election process is controlled by the GOP and they told me since they changed the rules before the election then that counts as cheating. I raised my eyebrows since most FL counties allowed drop-off boxes for requested Mailing Ballots, and that shit was not approved by the FL Legislature. When I brought up that point, they were like well FL went for Trump hard.

So I see how it is, you only support this garbage lawsuit that goes against Federalism because you hope Trump still wins a second term. And two weeks ago these same guys where all for Federalism. I also noticed that Fox News isn't playing much in the shop, it is now Newsmax.

That TX lawsuit was disgusting to anyone who believe in Federalism. Then again, the TX AG is up in shit creek, so to be honest I'm not surprised on this at all.

Every year it makes it harder for me to vote for anyone in the two major political parties starting in the State Level and up. My State Rep/State Senator are Gerrymandered Districts, same for my Congressman and even some of the City Council seats are Gerrymandered. Except for the State Senator (who is a moderate Dem), everyone else can go hardcore GOP and get away with some silly stuff (with a major dose of wasted tax payer money, because no one can challenge them). I dunno how the GOP is in @crenca's home state, but in FL the GOP is acting too much like NY via Trump. As a NY'er, it's a turnoff since I moved to FL for FL, not NY. The Dems in FL are more/less killing themselves so depending on how this decade turns into, FL most likely will become a solid Red state in the style of AZ GOP before 2010.

 

People do not trust experts? This is like saying people do not trust people, some I trust so I do not.
When educations has been replaced by credentials, why the heck people should trust experts?
Experts:
- experts who have expertise and make mistakes like people sometimes do? If they have a proven record I trust them.
- or experts who do not have a f'ing clue what they are talking about? Oh and to know that the expert does not have a clue, yes you need to be somewhat more qualified then they are.
- or experts who are straight lying to you in the service of their political masters?
- or experts who with great confidence testify in court about the state of mind of a person when he or she committed a crime three years ago?
- or post modern experts "my narrative is as good as your narrative", but I am and expert?

Except in the technical field where the knowledge is easily verifiable by the results, the whole concept of "expertise" is as death as the concept of education.
First the entire academic establishment spends two generation deconstructing and politicizing science, and then they want people to trust experts. People are not that stupid.
And yes, this mistrust is so widespread that sometimes it may have deadly consequences but people did not wake up one day saying " we are not going to trust experts starting today"

 

I try to remind myself that not all doctors graduate at the top of their class. In fact, some probably had to rewrite everything exam during their studies. I also remind myself that this applies to most all occupations, including my own.

 

I think it was sometime in 1950s, just a little too late for me (b. '52) to be affected, that some of those "experts," in UK, designed a special version of the alphabet that supposedly made it easier for children to learn to read. Apparently it had a major negative effect on the education of the children that suffered it. I'm guessing that those experts were qulaified and experienced academics and educationalists... but somehow completely out of touch with the real world. Experts without a f'ing clue.

I ought to go read up that story: might be interesting. Just as I was inspired, a few months back, to read up the whole story of Dr Andrew Wakefield and the MMR/Autism debacle that caused so much harm. Fascinating in a horrible sort of way. But he was more fraud than expert. And he was neither a good scientist nor a good doctor.

I learnt to drive three times. First from my dad, but I left home before taking my test and couldn't afford lessons for a few years. Second time, failed test, and again, didn't have the cash for a while. You hear people say they have a great driving instructor: they can't drive, so how would they know? Third time around, I knew.

(I "learnt" again, a fourth time, for my Indian license. Of course, I did not need to learn to drive again, but I did need lessons-taken signatures on a piece of paper and, frankly, I needed breaking in to the crazy stuff that is life on India roads)

 

@purr1n made me rethink my liken of the WSJ. After having issues previously with them on the subscription side, I rejoined their digital subscription earlier this week. They are doing their best deal 12 months 50% off at $19.88 per month I think. Digital monthly price is $38.99 per month normally. High price but the news and articles side is super strong (I like them more than the toilet paper that is NYT). Even having their Android app on my E-Ink Android tablet is like reading the paper but minus the wasted paper I throw away. I do consider the Opinions section of the WSJ to be super funny on alcohol with a few "you know they are right moments."

I should redo The Economist again. Very classic liberal British perspective, but honestly as long as you know their bias they are pretty solid too. Their Android apps are fantastic.

 

I don't want to sound too fanboi, but The Economist is the shit. There is no half-assing anything at The Economist. Been subscribing for almost a 10 years now.

 

It's so good, just the once a week delivery dump is too much for me when I read other magazines and comics + IRL. That's why I stopped doing The Economist. Add The Economist to the mix and I do stress read, which is not good. Currently I'll deal with WSJ for day to day stuff and three Magazines and call it a day for my reading. Still leave room for comics and manga.

If you do the The Economist Digital, their Expresso app is great and their digital apps are also great. Even can listen to all the news via audio aka podcast if that's your jam.

 

I'm a graphic designer by trade, so the print edition brings me much joy. The fact that I can get cover-to-cover in such a small-print physical media channel regularly tells me there's much to be learned from their layout and typographic choices. Not to mention the content is absolutely first-rate.

 

There’s a couple sayings re medicine I’m fond of:
1) the only thing harder than getting in to med school is getting kicked out.
2) you have to first have your license before you can lose it.

 

By the time I get the delivery locally, it's old news. Digital you get the new Economist on Thursdays. Also having an E-Ink tablet helps on paper waste.