NUance

Ha ha! I was searching for Broderick Thomas highlights when I found this.

Imagine the impact to the global economy if terrorists decided to shut down the Suez Canal. About 12% of all global trade passes through it.

British soldier, Mad Jack Churchill. He killed dozens of Germans in WWII battles with a bow and arrows, and his sword.

If you're attending class via Zoom, always remember to mute your mic when playing Call of Duty.

Exactly. What company would open a plant in Mexico after seeing that?

Also, the Chinese gov't cooperates with the private sector to create jobs. By contrast, governments of Central and South America have a history of not being cooperative with private industry. Just look at Venezuela where they nationalized the oil industry and several other industries during the past 10 or 15 years. LINK

If he was an I-back with Keith Jones in 1984 he must be in his upper 50s. Wow! He looks to be in pretty good shape for that age. I imagine our I-back room was just as deep in 1984 as it was back in the mid 90s. Back then we had third and fourth string guys who would have started on a lot of Div. 1 teams. Those were good days for football. *sigh*

I imagine most (much?) of the testing has been done on the company side as they do in normal circumstances, and the gov't approvals/verification are where they're cutting corners. But I'm just spittballing about this. I have no idea how they developed these vaccines so fast.

Yikes! What a jacka$$. /smh

"Experts have estimated that 70 to 90 percent of people may need to be immune against the virus to achieve herd immunity." LINK 70-90?? That's an awful broad range. That said, I think we're still quite a ways below 70%. I wonder what percent of the population are anti-vaxxers? 10% maybe? More?

12 people are behind most of the anti-vaxxer disinformation you see on social media BY MATT BINDER 3/24/2021 If you catch your old college roommate sharing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on Facebook, the odds are that these falsehoods are coming from one of twelve people. That’s right. Just twelve individuals. A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch found that up to 65 percent of “anti-vaccine content” on Facebook and Twitter originated from twelve influencers within the anti-vaxxer movement. <snip> The largest anti-vaxxer influencer on social media, according to the report, is Joseph Mercola. Mercola is an alternative medicine promoter who runs a multimillion dollar online business selling treatments and dietary supplements. The FDA recently sent Mercola a warning over his sham treatments for COVID-19. Another major culprit is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, is perhaps one of the most high profile influencers in the anti-vaxxer community. Last month, Instagram banned him from the platform for violating the site’s coronavirus vaccine misinformation policy. However, despite calls to deplatform him from Twitter and Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, Kennedy’s accounts remain on those social media services. The other social media users in the “Disinformation Dozen” include Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Christiane Northrup, Ben Tapper, and Kevin Jenkins. LINK ================================================================================= I guess I don't understand why? Do these people not know the damage they're doing? They must know that they're spreading misinformation. I wonder if they've ever thought about how many deaths they've caused? This is a perfect example of the freedom we have in America, and the potential for harm that comes along with those freedoms. The 1st Amendment gives us the freedom to say nearly anything we want—regardless of whether it's true or not. /gets off soapbox. pours a drink

I'd be willing to bet those are not the guy's weapons. The story has a lot more impact with a photo, and I'd bet the NY Times did not have a photo at the time the story was breaking. Also, the guy is either: 1) an irresponsible idiot; or 2) a mass shooter who lost his nerve.

Finally got my shot yesterday. It's the Johnson & Johnson shot. So only need one. Woo hoo! Then I stopped by to see a buddy of mine and tell him that shots were available right then with no waiting. He's a barber so he closely interacts with customers all day long—generally 20 to 30 customers per day, for around 15 to 20 minutes each. He said he's not getting a shot. Apparently he's an anti-vaxxer. Weird huh?

Human penises shrinking due to pollution ROB BESCHIZZA 6:38 AM WED MAR 24, 2021 www.boingboing.net Penises are becoming smaller as part of environmental changes wrought by pollution, especially phthalate esters and other troublesome chemicals in plastics. As a result of this pollution, a growing number of babies are being born with small penises, Dr Swan writes. Her book, titled Count Down [Amazon], examines "how our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperilling the future of the human race". … She discovered that male human babies who had been exposed to the phthalates in the womb had a shorter anogenital distance – something that correlated with penile volume. LINK

Car crash.

When you see stats like those from the Vox chart LINK do you ever stop and wonder why they are presented in the manner that they are? If you glance at this colorful Vox graphic is appears that guns cause Americans to go around committing homicides. But then I wondered: What percentage of homicides are gun homicides in the U.S.? That led me to wonder: How does that compare to the other countries on the Vox chart? The answer is below: (The first column is from Vox. The second column is total homicides per million population.) Homicides Guns Total % guns United States 29.7 49.6 60% Switzerland 5.9 7.7 77% Belgium 17.0 6.8 40% Luxembourg 3.0 6.2 48% Canada 17.6 5.1 29% Ireland 8.7 4.8 55% (I had to compile these stats by hand--so I didn't do all the countries on the Vox chart) In the U.S. we have a lot of murders for a first world country. A LOT! Over 6X as many as Switzerland, the next highest country on the Vox chart. And we have more gun murders than most first world countries. But not 400% more like the Vox chart would lead you to believe. Considering the ease with which you can get a gun in the U.S. it's surprising our gun homicide rate (60%) is roughly the same as Ireland (55%) and only a bit more than Luxembourg (48%). Given this, would you say the Vox chart is misleading? Sadly, most people look at a chart like this and reach the conclusion it was intended to convey. (Note: I used wiki as a source of data for total murders: LINK )

2021 NFL Scouting Combine: Full list of invited prospects LINK

At the risk of interrupting, I have a question: Why don't we see more geography specific gun regulation? I'm talking about legislation similar to the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. LINK Except for whole counties and large urban areas rather than the few city blocks surrounding a school zone. I live in down-state Illinois. People in this rural area grow up with guns, and—knock on wood—there aren't many gun related crimes around here. Things are different up in Chicago. There aren't nearly as many guns, yet there is more gun violence in Chicago than the rest of the state. It makes sense to have more stringent gun laws in inner city Chicago than in the rural areas of Illinois. So why don't we see more geography specific gun regulation?

Being a young team with lots of raw talent isn't too bad of a spot to be in right now. With all the Covid cancelations last year most teams only racked up about half their normal amount of play time. So everyone is down a bit in experience. There must be a pony in here somewhere!

In my full pool sheet I have 7/16 with predicted winner Illinois on the bus home. I'm dead in the water unless Bama or Houston win the whole thing. Oh well. There's always women's ncaa volleyball.

First infrastructure action item: Escalators for boarding airplanes.

Re this part of the quote: I'd be willing to bet that there's a high correlation between people who are uninsured and people who disregard Covid safety measures. Even if the Covid disregarders were given free insurance they'd still ignore safety measures and raise the nation's Covid stats. I'm just spitballing here.