Stannis

Caden Sterns's effort on that touchdown was embarrassing. That guy is supposed to be a first rounder?

I think that LTtxfan poster that sits around all day posting random tweets on the Football board might be Machinator, post-reprogram?

My recollection is that Tech's big receivers, including Vasher, who appears to be a damn good football player, made some insane catches in traffic against decent coverage by Green, Jamison, and Thompson at different times. I know all college football fans are trained to think that when their guys execute, only good things should happen. But Tech rolled out some really talented receivers and a quarterback who put the ball on the money much of the time, and those guys executed. I don't recall any glaring busted coverages. I recall Vasher taking balls out of the air in contested situations. So, I don't know that Green was "abused." Consistent with the last few years, our CBs have trouble turning and making plays on the ball and tackling.

I was a junior in 05. I watched the OSU game at a friend's apartment in North campus. It was one of those buildings with three or four floors, with the individual apartments wrapped around an inner courtyard. Right after we won (in the Shoe, at night!), all of us - not just me and my friends - but all of us in that building, probably 100 UT students, went outside, stood around that courtyard, and sang the Eyes of Texas and Texas Fight together for what seemed like 30 minutes. It sounds a little cheesy now. But that win erased the 90s, it erased 2001 Colorado, it erased the OU debacles, it erased the "Texas can't win a big game" bullshit, and it solidified the Horns as a no-shit national power in a way that no other game had done in decades. There hasn't been a "better" regular season Texas game than 05 Ohio State since DKR was roaming the sidelines. Tonight was a fun ending, but it doesn't come close.

Honestly the most beer I've consumed during a game in years. I'm in deep shit with my better half for drunkingly yelling at one of the bullshit plays in the second half (do not ask me to remember which one) and scaring the hell out of my 8-month-old and my 5-year-old. Weirdly, my 2-year-old thought it was funny as shit. She and I will sleep on the couch together tonight.

Did a 9th-grader write this? That reads like something I would have written for a high school English assignment. So, I guess it is close to what I would expect for the Chancellor of the Texas A&M System.

Not sure. I read this morning that many of the cases in France are among younger people, like here. So, hopefully hospitalizations aren't following cases.

I've been holding out hope on the lower immunity threshold, but it's not a great look that Spain and France are blowing up worse than before.

Solid.

We're about to double envelop the shit out of that Texas Tech territory.

I'll have to try to dig up where I read this, but I think I remember reading recently that, surprisingly, deaths from automobile accidents are not down this year. Apparently with fewer cars on the road and less congestion, people are driving more recklessly.

I completely agree with you. The excess death number likely is the most accurate estimate we have of the true cost of COVID. However, some portion of those excess deaths are indirect results of the pandemic, not directly from COVID. For example, an elderly acquaintance of mine needed regular kidney treatments prior to the pandemic to survive (I can't recall if it was dialysis or something else). When the pandemic began, as an elderly person with serious preexisting conditions, he was terrified of COVID, so he stopped going in for his regular treatments. He never got COVID, but his family buried him a few weeks ago - he passed from his kidney disease after foregoing treatments due to a concern about contracting COVID. Would he have passed this year even had he stayed on his treatment schedule? I don't know. But I think it is fair to assume that some portion of the excess deaths are attributable to people foregoing necessary preventative care, increased suicide, drug over-doses, and similar situations. I'm not suggesting those indirect causes make up a majority of the excess deaths, but I suspect they make up some sizable portion. What a horrible year.

"The universe is indifferent." - Don Draper to hippies in 1960, but equally applicable to morons in 2020 who have gender reveal parties. No one cares about your kids except you and, if you're lucky, some close family.

A close, life-long friend is getting married in December. The wedding is going to be at a partial indoor/partial outdoor venue in a small Texas town, with several hundred guests invited. I'm a groomsman, along with several other very close, life-long friends. The bride and groom have several days of activities planned leading up to the wedding, with room-blocks booked at hotels and shuttles taking everyone from place to place. I will be shocked if anyone has a mask on. Out of the two-dozen or so people I know who are part of the wedding, I've not heard anyone raise any concerns. My wife and I are planning on telling the bride and groom that we do not feel comfortable attending. While we are all still (relatively) young, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills observing how nonchalant everyone else is being about going to a wedding, with zero alterations to account for the fact that the state, country, and planet are in the middle of a global pandemic. I suppose there is a theoretical chance a really effective treatment could be announced between now and then, but with vaccines looking unlikely until early 2021, it seems probable that COVID will still be spreading in December. I love these friends dearly and do not want to hurt them. But I also don't think it is responsible to pretend like the world in December 2020 will be the same as it was in December 2019. I guess I'm looking for affirmation that I'm not unreasonable for hesitating about attending?

You literally asserted: Do you now agree with me that your previous statement was incorrect?

The Communist system had little, if anything, to do with defeating the Axis Powers on the Eastern Front. The Germans (and their vassal allies like Romania, Italy, Finland, and Hungary) were defeated by the overwhelming weight of numbers and the massive land-mass of the Soviet Union, not some inherent advantage that the Communist system provided to the Soviets. In fact, the brutality of Communist system was one of the primary reasons why Germany had so much success during the first few months of Barbarossa. Stalin, being a good Communist, had purged hundreds of thousands of his officers in the months and years leading up to June 1941. As a result, the Soviet Army was practically leaderless when the Germans invaded. While the Soviet troops on the ground, in many cases, fought valiantly in the summer and fall of 1941, entire Soviet field armies (including as many as 700,000 men in the Kiev pocket) were surrounded and obliterated due to incompetent leadership. Germany was stopped short of capturing Moscow in 1941 because, simply put, the German Army was exhausted, not because of the Soviet system. Some German divisions were operating at battalion strength; they had no winter clothes; and they had conquered an area of land in Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, and western Russia that was twice as large as the entirety of France. The Soviets didn't have a superior system than the Germans, they had an endless supply of men, land, and winter to keep throwing at the Germans. Capitalism, on the other hand, played a crucial role in winning World War II. American Capitalism, through the Lend/Lease Act, quite literally fed the Soviet Union from 1942 to 1945. During World War II, the United States supplied to the USSR the 2020 equivalent of more than $100 billion in food and equipment. The Soviet Army would have had to walk to Berlin, not ride, if not for the 400,000+ trucks and 2,000 locomotives the US provided. The US also supplied the Soviets with some 12,000 aircraft, 13,000 tanks and armored vehicles, nearly 5 million tons of food, and nearly 3 million tons of petroleum products. 60% of all aviation fuel used by the Soviet Air Force during the war was supplied by the United States. Soviet blood was essential in defeating Nazi Germany; but America's industrial base was every bit as important. Bad Teammate's assessment also completely ignores the War in the Pacific. American Capitalism was the only economic system that could have allowed for the massive logistical effort necessary to transport millions of men and millions of tons of material across the vast Pacific Ocean. By the end of the War, the U.S. Navy had nearly 1,200 capital warships, including 27 fleet carriers, more than 100 escort carriers, and 18 battleships - more than 70% of the entire world's total tonnage of naval vessels. The U.S. military was able to hop from island to island in the Pacific, from Guadalcanal, to Tarawa, to Cape Gloucester, to Saipan, to Guam, to Tinian, to Peleliu, to Iwo Jima, and finally to Okinawa, while simultaneously deploying armies to New Guinea and the Philippines, winning the Battle of Atlantic, and conducting landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy, and Southern France, because our economic system permitted the construction of such a massive navy. Finally, his assessment ignores that the resource allocations among the United States and the USSR were intentional. The U.S. could have built an Army much larger than 91 divisions (plus 6 Marine divisions), but by design, the U.S. committed millions more men to: 1. Industry on the Home Front; 2. Agriculture on the Home Front; 3. Building a massive Navy to fight a world war on two fronts; and 4. Building a massive strategic bomber force that obliterated Germany's industries and cities. The U.S. could have taken the millions of men in its Navy, Merchant Marine, Army Air Corps, and Industry and put them in front line infantry and armored divisions. But the better resource allocation was to turn America into the Arsenal of Democracy, such that it could supply enough men to keep the pressure on the Germans in the West and defeat the Japanese in the East (and LOL at the hapless Italians), while simultaneously supplying enough raw material, equipment, and supplies to the Soviets to keep them in the War while they were battering the Soviets on the Eastern Front. Google "the 90-Division Gamble" for more. In short, the political and economic systems of the United States allowed it to fight on numerous fronts across the entire globe: the South Pacific, the Central Pacific, Alaska, the China/Burma Theater, the Philippines, North Africa, Italy, Southern France, Western France, and the Atlantic. The Soviet's political and economic system could never have done that. World War II was not about the triumph of Communism or Socialism, it was about the triumph of American Capitalism.

When I was 18, a lunatic demanded the heads of my older brother and his best friend. So I went to war and quickly found myself defending an ancient fortress under siege by the enemy for the better part of a year. I nearly starved to death. We survived only by eating horses, household pets, and even our own dead until eventually a smuggler broke the enemy's lines and brought us a meager supply of onions to sustain us until the siege was finally lifted. I'd say that is the closest I have come to cheating the Seven Hells, though recent events have me wondering.

Kings have no friends, only subjects and enemies.

The US Navy has 14 Ohio-Class Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines. Each one of those subs carries 20 Trident submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles. Each of those 20 missiles is a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), meaning each of the 20 Trident missiles carries up to 12 nuclear warheads (that is, if one Trident missile is launched, it can independently deploy 12 nuclear bombs to 12 independent targets). In short, our submarine-based strategic nuclear deterrent, by itself, is capable of vaporizing every soul in China many times over. That doesn't even take into consideration the other two arms of our nuclear triad (land-based ICBMs and strategic bombers). I don't think China is going to be taking down our power grid any time soon.

The CDC's "Current Best Estimate" for the overall Infection Fatality Rate ("IFR") of COVID-19 is 0.65%: CDC: COVID 19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios (Previously, this estimate was 0.25%, but they raised it several weeks ago.) The IFR for older individuals is substantially higher than for younger individuals. Using the raw number of confirmed cases as the denominator overestimates the true fatality rate, because it excludes the numerous people who never get tested either due to (1) minimal symptoms; or (2) no recognized symptoms. Of course, death is only one bad outcome resulting from COVID. The hospitalization rate for this disease for both younger and older individuals is much higher than other infectious diseases.

Moderna released the full data set for its phase 1 trial, and the data showed safety and efficacy. Neutralizing antibodies in an amount 2x to 4x what is seen in a recovered COVID patient were seen in all 45 participants. The phase 3 trial with 30,000 participants will begin on July 27. Google "Moderna" for any number of sources, but here is one: Moderna Phase 1 Results Positive

This morning Gilead released additional positive data on Remdesivir. If I recall correctly, initial testing indicated that while Remdesivir was found to reduce hospital duration from an average of 15 to 11 days, there was no observed benefit on mortality. The newly released data apparently shows that Remdesivir reduced the risk of death for severely sick patients by 62% compared with standard care alone. The data comes from comparing 312 patients enrolled in a phase three trial who received Remdesivir with 818 patients in a "real-world restrospective cohort" who received standard of care with no Remdesivir. This needs to be confirmed with a placebo-controlled, double-blind study. But these initial results seem even more promising than the results that Dr. Fauci touted originally. Gilead Says Remdesivir Coronavirus Treatment Reduces Risk of Death

The book is: "The Millionaire Next Door." Getting a good education and a good job = earning money through work. In fact, that precisely is the path to prosperity. The poster I was responding to stated "Not everyone with money earned it through work, especially in Texas." The implication he was trying to make is that Texas is full of a bunch of millionaires living off their O&G trust funds. Sure, there are some of those. They are the large minority.

More than 80% of all American millionaires are self made; fewer than 20% inherited at least 10% of their wealth. More than 50% of all millionaires did not inherit a dollar.

Thanks for sharing this. I've had a hard time finding good data on this. If true, it is great news that mass gatherings outside don't seem to cause a substantial increase in cases. That could be an important data point for policymakers deciding whether to keep beaches, parks, and other outdoor forums open as cases increase. The problem here is the disparate treatment between BLM protesters and "Open the Economy" protesters. The viewpoint discrimination by many in the media (and I suspect many on this website) is frustratingly hypocritical. When the "Open the Economy" protesters were out in full force in early May, countless Americans were proclaiming that those people were irresponsible hicks who (1) were all going to get infected; (2) would cause exponential spikes in cases; and (3) should decline treatment after their inevitable infection because they assumed the risk from engaging in such grossly negligent behavior as peacefully assembling to protest for a cause they believed in. Then, a matter of weeks later, the same people who were eviscerating the "Open the Economy" protesters were either (1) themselves engaged in BLM protests; or (2) vocally supportive of such protests. That's fine - I'm a big believer in exercising one's right to peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. It's the hypocrisy that I and many others can't stand. It seems clear that many people who are trying to draw a correlation between case spikes and the BLM protesters are doing so out frustration at that hypocrisy. If the data doesn't support that, then good; fewer cases is a good thing. But the hypocrisy is still there.