We Miss General Groves

 The NY Times as usual bemoans the execution of the vaccine distribution. Blame is everywhere. But consider this. General Groves was in charge of the Manhattan project. It included the crew, maintenance, selection of B-29, and all the way down to the length of the takeoff field. The current scheme to follow the previous example, just dropped shipped the bombs to say San Francisco, and let other people yet unnamed take it the rest of the way. The current General acted as if all he had to do was to deliver the device to the airport in San Francisco and then the Japanese would take over from there! In almost all cases the Governors were adversaries to the Feds. No surprise. Furthermore their handling locally often led to mass deaths at LTC facilities, see New York and New Jersey.

The problem is that we have 50 Governors in charge, and these are the same folks who run Motor Vehicle Offices. They demanded to be in control. The CDC had every state submit a plan, then at the end they issued their own. So what do we have, chaos. The CDC is an organization in the state of collapse, from the monitoring, the tests, and so forth. The General in charge just dropped shipped to 400 locations, his job was done. Not even close General. You were trusting in the kindness of strangers, the locals, who for the most part were clueless.

Go back to the Salk vaccine. I was on the first lines. We were just told where to be when and get in line. Now we have no idea where or when or who. Just that there is a dilapidated Sears store on a mountain top in western New Jersey that will be the collection spot most likely in some snow storm. Good choice Phil.

Top States

 

As of today here are the top states in terms of execution. There are percent inoculated related to vaccines delivered. Note that West Virginia is about 40% and New Jersey, not listed, is 10%. Don't blame the FEDs here folks. It is the gross incompetence of the low end States.

The Disgrace of it All!

 

Bloomberg has been publishing the vaccines distributed by State and the people having been vaccinated. Note how well West Virginia is doing and incompetent New Jersey is. Unlike the recriminations from the President Elect, it is NOT the Feds but as I have been stating for months, it would be and is the States. New Jersey has now un-adopted its ridiculous plan for a nothing plan. It may be back and even worse so we must just wait. The State, New Jersey, lost two weeks due to gross incompetence and thus about 140 more deaths in LTC due to that gross incompetence. Facts are a pity, but they do tell a story. Thank God more than half my family is in West Virginia! Go Mountaineers!

Oh yes, look at Israel. As the Telegraph notes:

Israel is just nine days into its Covid-19 vaccination drive and already it has inoculated 5.7 per cent of its population –more than five times the 1.2 per cent reached in Britain. More Israelis have now been vaccinated than have caught the virus and that includes more than 25 per cent of those aged 60 and above. Such is the power of the world’s fastest vaccination drive, it is predicted that the proportion of over 60s among the critically ill will drop from 70 per cent to just 20 per cent by mid-January. 

So it can be done, done well, and effectively. But we have Governors who seem for the most part to be clueless. If lucky we will be where Israel is now by June! The end of June. I suspect the mega-sites of the Gov will be managed by the DMV.

Books and Libraries

 In the process of adapting to the virus we see many of us on Zoom meetings and we also see the "Press", those self knighted select individuals as well, with their backgrounds of books, perchance a personal library. But a sneak view leads me to believe that they just loaded some things on a shelf that they got from Amazon and now we see the same copy of Grant or an Obama bio visibly taking its place as an integral semiotic contribution to being "all knowing".

But the real question is; does anybody have a library of real books today, one they have actually read? If so, what does it tell us about them and about our society. I suspect that those with a well read library of over 10,000 volumes is small and I would tend to say that as our population ages the number will be even smaller.

Yet a well read library has a life that may be more than its current owner. I have noticed that in some of my own holdings. I have books from the library of people whom I have great respect, and that book has more value to me than just its contents. The provenance says something that is more than words. How the library can morph from generation to generation is a telling fact that gives us some understanding of our culture and its own morphine. 

I suspect however that we will not see such a provenances since we face two trends. The first is the placing of so much on-line, so much in that amorphous setting wherein the marginalia of the intellect is lost. The second is that many in the younger generation do not read, do not even think. They are taught to parrot what they are told not to question it. To question, to seek alternative views, is an anathema to the current "woke" generation. I truly despise that word wherever it came from. But it seems to officially reflect the demand for conformity, and in the case of a library, the elimination of any nonconforming "bespokeness".

I do hope the libraries that are out there survive with new owners. Perhaps they may be forced into some underground safe space until a resurrection of true learning, for that has happened before. For it is only by open debate, understanding, and the confronting of intellectual dissonance that we can truly move forward. Mandated compliance id not just a societal deficit, it is a societal means for destruction.

Happy New Year.

Uncertainty Rules

 New Jersey continues to spiral to a state of incompetent instability. The most recent vaccine recommendations not that Stages 1b, 1c and 2 are "Definitions in Progress". Now this is after they had a detailed plan on December 15, by December 28 we get the above, "Clueless" in Trenton. The FEDs managed an efficient and coordinated effort, the Pharmas and researchers did a fantastic job but now we have the bumbling characters in the State. Shame has no home in Politics, they just spin it.

I wonder what level of the Inferno Dante would have placed these characters. The 7th level? Likely.

Who Dies First

 The NY Times reports on a dialog between "decision makers" on who dies first. One of them states:

For Phase 1b, I haven’t presented a plan to the governor yet, but this is where I am so far: I’m very concerned with the over-75 category. When I look at my data, the average age of death from Covid for a white person is 81, but for a Latinx person it’s 67, and for a Black person it’s 72. Many of the people in these groups don’t even reach 75. I’m not sure what the right age brackets are, but I want to think about how to make it equitable and data-driven, based on the average age of death from Covid.

Statistics like this should be Bayesian. I suspect that these making those comments never heard of Bayes nor do that even have a clue. Pre-existing conditions are a significant factor and obesity is apparently the dominant one. We have argued that obesity, all too often a self inflicted condition, must and should be addressed. However just using age is a problem. I see people like this person in New Jersey where they even put the Press and Politicians at the head of the line. Since this is an election year in NJ one suspects a great many "donors" will be well at the front.

"Social Distancing"

 The above is a new visitor to my mountain. I will assure you I will social distance this one. Have a Happy New Year folks. Yes, it is a 40 lb Bobcat, the animal kind. Taken up residence.

NJ 2020 12 26

 Coming down but likely explode after Christmas/New Years. First county decreasing but town still on upswing. I suspect we will see massive increase after holiday which is why I am on a mountain top just south of Canadian border.

The town incidence is below.Well above past peak. It is the kids and they bring it home. "Kiddie Privilege"

Death rate still slightly below 1%

Doubling time is increasing

Incidence has peaked state wide

County looks the same

Merry Christmas

 1.                  Factum Est Autem In Diebus Illis Exiit Edictum A Caesare Augusto Ut Describeretur Universus Orbis

2.                  Haec Descriptio Prima Facta Est Praeside Syriae Cyrino

3.                  Et Ibant Omnes Ut Profiterentur Singuli In Suam Civitatem

4.                  Ascendit Autem Et Ioseph A Galilaea De Civitate Nazareth In Iudaeam Civitatem David Quae Vocatur Bethleem Eo Quod Esset De Domo Et Familia David

5.                  Ut Profiteretur Cum Maria Desponsata Sibi Uxore Praegnate

6.                  Factum Est Autem Cum Essent Ibi Impleti Sunt Dies Ut Pareret

7.                  Et Peperit Filium Suum Primogenitum Et Pannis Eum Involvit Et Reclinavit Eum In Praesepio Quia Non Erat Eis Locus In Diversorio

8.                  Et Pastores Erant In Regione Eadem Vigilantes Et Custodientes Vigilias Noctis Supra Gregem Suum

9.                  Et Ecce Angelus Domini Stetit Iuxta Illos Et Claritas Dei Circumfulsit Illos Et Timuerunt Timore Magno

10.              Et Dixit Illis Angelus Nolite Timere Ecce Enim Evangelizo Vobis Gaudium Magnum Quod Erit Omni Populo

11.              Quia Natus Est Vobis Hodie Salvator Qui Est Christus Dominus In Civitate David

12.              Et Hoc Vobis Signum Invenietis Infantem Pannis Involutum Et Positum In Praesepio

13.              Et Subito Facta Est Cum Angelo Multitudo Militiae Caelestis Laudantium Deum Et Dicentium

14.              Gloria In Altissimis Deo Et In Terra Pax In Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis

15.              Et Factum Est Ut Discesserunt Ab Eis Angeli In Caelum Pastores Loquebantur Ad Invicem Transeamus Usque Bethleem Et Videamus Hoc Verbum Quod Factum Est Quod Fecit Dominus Et Ostendit Nobis

16.              Et Venerunt Festinantes Et Invenerunt Mariam Et Ioseph Et Infantem Positum In Praesepio

17.              Videntes Autem Cognoverunt De Verbo Quod Dictum Erat Illis De Puero Hoc

18.              Et Omnes Qui Audierunt Mirati Sunt Et De His Quae Dicta Erant A Pastoribus Ad Ipsos

19.              Maria Autem Conservabat Omnia Verba Haec Conferens In Corde Suo

20.              Et Reversi Sunt Pastores Glorificantes Et Laudantes Deum In Omnibus Quae Audierant Et Viderant Sicut Dictum Est Ad Illos

Another I Told You So

 Med City News comments on the colossal mess we are seeing in the distribution of the vaccine. They note:

Instead, Operation Warp Speed allocated initial doses to the states, depending on population. From there, an inscrutable mix of state officials, public health agencies and lobbyists seem to be determining where the vaccine should go. In some states, counties requested an allotment from the state, and then they tried to accommodate requests from hospitals, which made their individual algorithms for how to dole out the precious cargo. Once it became clear there wasn’t enough vaccine to go around, each entity made its own adjustments. Some doses are being shipped by FedEx or UPS. But Pfizer — which did not fully participate in Operation Warp Speed — is shipping much of the vaccine itself. In nursing homes, some vaccines will be delivered and administered by employees of CVS and Walgreens, though issues of staffing and consent remain there. The Moderna vaccine, rolling out this week, will be packaged by the “pharmaceutical services provider” Catalent in Bloomington, Indiana, and then sent to McKesson, a large pharmaceutical logistics and distribution outfit. It has offices in places like Memphis, Tennessee, and Louisville, which are near air hubs for FedEx and UPS, which will ship them out. Is your head spinning yet?

 No my head has not stopped spinning. Worse yet the NY Times reports:

“I am so disappointed and saddened that this happened,” a New York hospital executive wrote to his staff after workers who did not have priority cut the line for the vaccine. At NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, one of the most highly regarded hospitals in New York City, a rumor spread last week that the line for the coronavirus vaccine on the ninth floor was unguarded and anyone could stealthily join and receive the shot. Under the rules, the most exposed health care employees were supposed to go first, but soon those from lower-risk departments, including a few who spent much of the pandemic working from home, were getting vaccinated.

Indeed we have a major problem. Months ago I said we needed a General Groves. Instead we got a General "I'm sorry". Grove was in charge of everything, down to the B29 tires, crew, shipping, etc. Not just the science. Anyone who has the slightest clue on how to do something like this would never have left it up to the states. They are grossly incompetent. I suspect that the New Jersey batch is still behind the Lost Ark at the airport in Newark.  I also suspect that between the lobbyists and political friends, the proposed CDC plan is total fiction. 

When the books on this incompetent set of actions is written a decade from now, the worst actors will be the State players. The second worse will be General "what's his name".

To paraphrase a politician: "I knew General Groves Sir, and you are no General Groves".

Back to Herd Immunity

 

The NY Times reports on The Fauci's prognostications on Herd Immunity. They note:

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.” In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

In my opinion based on an ongoing analysis of this elegantly engineered virus, he is way off. In fact there is no her immunity. Let's us go over the facts:

1. The virus enters the nasopharynx where it is nominally 94F. It can survive very nicely there.

2. If one were immunized the virus would try to go to the lungs but the immune system would recognized the spike protein and attack.

3. Bu the ones in the nasopharynx would still survive. You see at 94F the spike protein is folded a bit differently and thus the virus cannot enter the cell but it equally cannot be identified by an antibody. Sneaky little creature that was designed.

4. Thus the immunized person does not get sick but they remain a carrier! Yep, there they go, and if they start shouting or yelling in some closed environment the little virions start spreading.

5. If everyone were immunized then all we get is a dormant reserve.

6. However if we have an immunized pool left then people get ill when the virus gets to 98F and into the cells of the person.

7. Then the trouble really starts. These non immunized persons become mutations machines. The virus multiplies and each time it may mutate. Enough mutations and we now have a new virus and the cycle starts all over again.

8. Answer, there is no herd immunity and we need 100% vaccinations ASAP and a continuous watch for spike mutations for subsequent immunizations. 

Facts are a real bummer folks, but trying to soft peddle this is worse. The virus as I have said is an elegantly designed bio-weapon. Unless aggressively attacked in toto, it keeps changing and attacks again. The key has been the design of a spike or entry protein which is temperature sensitive. Nice design, nice weapon.

Told You So

 

As northjersey.com notes:

The Murphy administration defended itself Monday and seemed to shift some blame to the federal government after missing a deadline to start vaccinating staff and residents of nursing homes this week against COVID-19. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy dismissed a top Republican's call for Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli to resign over the delay, saying "the last thing we need is people who don't know what they're talking about from the cheap seats." Murphy did not say where the responsibility lies for the Department of Health's failure to submit the required paperwork to the federal government in time to begin vaccinating staff and residents in the locations hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, he urged patience and understanding as his administration rolls out a vaccine that was developed in record time and on a massive scale.  "This is not an easy, straight-line process," Murphy said at his regular coronavirus briefing in Trenton. "It is one of the most ambitious federal government initiatives ever undertaken, and folks have to understand that." 

Now my grandmother was a nurse, my sister is a nurse, my mother in law was a nurse and a great deal about medicine I learned from my first head nurse, Mrs. Kahn. But the execution of the delivery of the vaccine needs a competent individual and a politically well connected nurse grossly, in my opinion and in my experience, misses the target. This will just get worse as the current Administration in Trenton bumbles about in its inane attempt to deliver vaccine. Prior planning prevents poor performance and it seems clear that a proverbial "Nurse Ratchet" has done none. It is a straight line. All one has to do is execute. A Banker and a Nurse will not get us there. One wonders how many will die as a result of this gross incompetence. As a metric, we still see 10 deaths per day in LTC alone (see above). A week delay is 70 more unnecessary deaths. These are not "cheap seats', they are human lives. 

Facts are a real bummer Gov. "Standing room only"

Medical Ethicists, NOT

 Stanford apologizes for its algorithm that excluded front-line physicians from the vaccine while distributing it to management. As Technology Review reports:

When resident physicians at Stanford Medical Center—many of whom work on the frontlines of the covid-19 pandemic—found out that only seven out of over 1,300 of them had been prioritized for the first 5,000 doses of the covid vaccine, they were shocked. Then, when they saw who else had made the list, including administrators and doctors seeing patients remotely from home, they were angry. During a planned photo op to celebrate the first vaccinations taking place on Friday December 18, at least 100 residents showed up to protest. Hospital leadership apologized for not prioritizing them, and blamed the errors on “a very complex algorithm.”  “Our algorithm, that the ethicists, infectious disease experts worked on for weeks… clearly didn’t work right,” Tim Morrison, the director of the ambulatory care team, told residents at the event in a video posted online. Many saw that as an excuse, especially since hospital leadership had been made aware of the problem on Tuesday—when only five residents made the list—and responded not by fixing the algorithm, but by adding two more resident names for a total of seven. 

No surprise here. First it was a Silicon Valley system, that is self survival, second it involved those illusive Medical Ethicists.

Druid Feast

Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice. A well known Druid feast, marking the rebirth of the sun and a new year. It also marks the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, last seen 400 years ago. As NASA notes:

Jupiter and Saturn have gradually moved closer to each other over for months, and on December 21, the two worlds will be at their closest, around 1/5 of a full Moon apart. This is close enough that many telescopes may be able to see both planets at once in the same field of view! These conjunctions occur every 20 years, and this is an especially close one!

This conjunction is called the Great Conjunction as Space com notes:

On the last solstice of 2020 (Dec. 21), Jupiter and Saturn will appear the closest together in the night sky in 4 centuries. Some parts of Earth's Northern Hemisphere have been feeling chilly weather for weeks now, but the official beginning of winter occurs on the solstice. This is the point when the daytime is at its shortest in one hemisphere and when daytime is the longest in the other hemisphere. Dec. 21 is the summer solstice for the southern half of planet Earth. This year, the solstice happens to converge with a "great conjunction" that some have christened as an early "Christmas star" because of its occurrence hear the holiday.

The combination of solstice and Great Conjunction bodes for great changes. Perhaps New Jersey will see the light, then again it is New Jersey...jokes included. 

CDC vs New Jersey

 According to STAT, the CDC announced:

An expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Sunday that adults aged 75 and older, as well as frontline essential workers, be designated as the second priority group to be vaccinated against Covid-19. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also voted to recommend that the third stage of the national vaccination program should focus on adults 65 to 74, people 16 to 64 years old with high-risk medical conditions, and essential workers not included in the second phase of vaccination. The committee defined frontline essential workers as first responders, teachers and other education workers including day care workers, food and agriculture workers, correctional facility staff, postal workers, public transit workers, and people who work in manufacturing and in grocery stores.

 But not in New Jersey. In New Jersey this group of 75+ are behind the imprisoned, the migrant workers, the Press, bankers, college students and any "student" over 16 years of age, any Government employee, morticians, cooks, waiters, etc. Except perhaps for some select group the Gov and his cronies will do a politically profitable carve out for. 

I guess he assumes that this group won't be around next Fall for his next campaign so why even try. Maybe I'll run for Governor.

Belly of the Beast

In the New Jersey Plan it appears that some whiz kid decided to have the entire county go to the Rockaway Mall. Now anyone tracking the virus in the County would know that this is the location of the highest rate of infection. It is almost 100 times higher than other towns. So what do these geniuses do, bring everyone there, make them wait in line, in January, in the freezing weather while State actors fumble about, misdirecting people, exposing them to maximal risk, and then having them come back again and do it all over. In this group are 65+ and at high risk. So these poor folks must hobble over to the Mall, slip and slide across the ice and snow, try to find a place in line and hope they do not get infected. Thanks again to the Gov and his brilliant team. 

This is just what I was worried about.

Infectious vs Sick

 One fact about immunology should be made clear. Especially about the corona virus. The virus can reside in the nasopharynx at 94F with no multiplication but it can spread to others via aerosols. Recall an aerosol is a small "hot air" balloon type particle containing a virus element. They float, move, bounce and infect others.

Now the vaccine creates antibodies, Ab, in the person vaccinated. These Ab go about attacking the virus and infected cells deeper in the body where the temperature is above 98F, like the lungs and heart. 

Thus a vaccine protects the vaccinated but not those not vaccinated. Herd immunity is a fallacy.

For example. If we vaccinate the NJ Transit workers, they will most likely not get ill BUT they can be a Typhoid Mary type, spreading the virus to all those unvaccinated, or even to those vaccinated who can then bring it to locations of unvaccinated. The little bugs use us humans in a very effective manner.

It seems our brilliant politicians and lobbyists are clueless on this issue of immunology 101. By vaccinating these "essential workers" we may be protecting them at the risk of massive exposure to those unprotected. The classic unintended consequence.

 Vaccination has now become a massive political football, supported by political funding and pressure groups. We have gone beyond any sense of "science", we quickly passed the "ethics" mandarins, like some older generation in Poland and Germany, and onto what makes the US function, political muscle. Welcome to the United States!

Twelve Years

 We have been at this blog for twelve years. Looking back, the initiation was when I was still at MIT working with doctoral and Post Docs and as the then new administration came on the scene. I was not an economist by training but had mastered many of the techniques while dealing with regulatory agencies. There was and remains a massive divide between economics and the real world. I was concerned about what the then new administration was proposing. There was a "financial crisis" due primarily to the alleged fraudulent lending practices and monetization of the less than reliable loans. The banks behind this collapse were looking to escape not only free of any responsibility but actually profiting from the actions.

 Here were some of my evolving thoughts:

 1.     The Romer Curve: Some economist from California came to the White House and before even stepping indoors detailed a month-by-month plan on how their proposal would reduce unemployment. I followed her projections and reality. Not once was her projection even close to reality over the three years I followed it. So much for economists. Trillions were dumped on the economy.

2.     "Shovel Ready Projects": This was one of the biggest scams ever. Hundreds of billions purported to be spent on projects in infrastructure. The only result I saw in my four years of weekly car travel to and from MIT were the signs. Lots of signs telling of some pending project, none of which I ever saw even started. Governments often live off of slogans, a few make sense but most and pure palaver. This one was just an excuse to enrich the coffers of God knows who.

3.     "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor": Back to health care for me. It was clear then new administration wanted to nationalize medicine. Needless to say I was against it. The Government cannot deliver the mail nor run a railroad. Why in God's name would you allow it to deal with life and death. The ACA became a massive and, in my opinion, abusive legal dictum from Washington. A typical example was the demand for an electronic health care network. The HER is a useless burden and has not usefulness for the ultimate user, the patient. Over this period members of Congress and State legislators had attempted to totally destroy any type of individual health care and mandate a centralized system. Their intent is total Government control under their own proscriptive.

4.     "You did not create that business by yourself, the Government helped you": This one sent me into a bit of a flurry. How did the Government help me in Russia? Yes Russia! Thanks to my Russian colleagues, now considered enemies, I managed to build an infrastructure across central and Eastern Europe. Did the then President and his cronies help. No. Did the Russians, yes. It was all at my own personal risk, time, money, insight, and totally devoid of the US Government. In fact, I had to move from New Jersey to Prague to get reliable electricity and field service competence. In reality what I accomplished was despite the US Government not as a result of its support.

5.     Cancer can be cured: Over this period, I saw and had the good fortune to be involved in the development of a variety of new treatments for cancer, and in some cases seeing cures for the first time. This achievement was the result of new "tools" like Next Gen Sequencing and the hard work of the physicians, scientists and engineers in the process. Unlike the Silicon Valley billionaires who created "hot air" and "civil unrest", the biotech industry was the one true positive jump forward. However, as we noted, much of this expertise not just leaked but flowed out to China.

6.     The COVID Plague: The last year we have seen the strangest development in humanity, the COVID plague. The role of Government to lead and assure the citizens that it can be overcome has turned into an ongoing war of abject hatred between parties. The COVID plague has demonstrated that "science" has turned into a religion, and if one is a practitioner of the approved denomination then their word is divine otherwise it is anathema. Unfortunately, science is problematic. As medical student are often told, what they have learned at the end of Med School will at best be half correct when they commence their professional life. Melanoma was a death sentence and now it can be "cured". CML was a death sentence now, at worst, a chronic annoyance treated with a generic drug. The COVID vaccine is the result of having the tools to do what was needed and the people to make it so.

7.     Networks, Security, and Incompetence: Billions were dropped from helicopters to fund rural broadband and yet it is argued by many that nothing happened. Why have we seen such massive security threats? Simple, the Government has amassed a collection of politicians and lacks the technical and intel competence demanded.

8.     Social Networks and Social Anarchy: Just after Facebook broke at Harvard my MIT students insisted that I join in. I did, for a short while, but soon saw the serious flaws in such a system. First for any adversary it provided the most powerful psychological profiling system ever created. In the 1970s we always wanted to get profiles of our Soviet adversaries, and oftentimes we received long profiles based on hearsay at best. Yet Facebook, circa 2008, was a perfect platform to see how an individual would respond to various stimuli. Furthermore, it was also a brilliant propaganda tool. Thus, in just a few short weeks I was in and then out. It clearly was too dangerous a tool to be left in the hands of immature and highly egotistical children. The same held for Twitter and my brief encounter. Yet the risk to the social media companies is that the alleged "value" they provide may be ephemeral. Just look at Facebook. Before it there was MySpace, and other similar environments online. Thus, what stops someone from creating a truly Balkanized environment, further intensifying the divide. Indeed, with newspapers for decades that is what happened. People have already self-segmented themselves off-line so why not on-line. The value chain can be easily broken here.

9.     The Revival of Marxism: As I have noted on many occasions my Grandmother was a major player in early 20^th century socialism having run for office both nationally and in New York as a leader of the Socialist Party. Yet then the issues were clean water and food, safe working conditions, fair wages, and most everything we agree to today. Also there was racial equality and the women's right to vote. Now the so-called socialists are fundamentally proto-Marxists. Instead of improving the lives of the individual then seek the destruction of the individual and the establishment of the state as a sine qua non and their dictates controlling such a state.

10.  The destruction of the Academy: I often wonder if I could ever be admitted into MIT now, even after all I may have done. I still recall be denied admission to Columbia because I was a Catholic, the letter written and signed by Dean Donald Barr, strangely enough the father of the outgoing Attorney General. Stranger even more is that I became a Professor at Columbia and now am on Boards at the Med School and Hospital. Perhaps I could be admitted to Columbia now, but alas I doubt the same could be said for MIT. Proto-Marxism is infiltrating all ranks of Academia. It goes beyond just political correctness; it is akin the Mao and The Great Leap Forward.

11.  China: From 2005 thru 2012 I had a bunch of doctoral students. All but one remained in the US and not a one them a US citizen. Many were Chinese nationals. I could see many more getting trained at MIT and returning to China and worse they were funded by the US Government, even worse by DoD and its related organization. I often worried about what I called the "Yamamoto syndrome", the Admiral whose attack on Pearl Harbor is infamous and whose education was at Harvard. We often worried about the IP in high tech such as electronics. I worried about biotech and not only controlling therapeutics but also controlling bio elements of warfare. Then came COVID.

12.  Russia: Russia could have been an allay but for. The "but fors" started in the Clinton Administration when the US sent masses of Business School academics to Russia and their efforts created oligarchs. The in the Balkans the US fought against the Orthodox Christians, and this worried Moscow. Then in the administration from 2008-2016 Russia was treated to various overt undermining such as State Department dignitaries personally intervening in elections and promoting adversarial relations with Moscow. Then of course we have had the last four years. What could have been a Kissingerian policy of using Russia to re balance China, resulted in the state of having a pile of adversaries and no allies.

13.  Trust: Finally, there is the issue of trust. Dave Staelin, a former colleague at MIT, introduced me to this issue. I had never given much thought to it, for in the Reagan years the phrase "trust but verify" was used regarding the Soviets. To anyone attuned to the language, trust did not exist, and one had to verify. I had spent the 70s doing some of that while in DC. In the intel world, trust is the last thing one ever thinks of. In fact, the three prime directives are; trust no one, never put it in writing, and always have a second exit. Well just look at the last decade. Trust is gone, everybody puts it in writing (email is the culprit) and there are no second exits, they all go out the front door. But the issue is trust. Can we trust politicians? No. Can we now even trust our elections? I really have doubts based upon my personal experiences here in New Jersey (loss of secret ballot, multiple mail in ballots, delayed counting well after declared results, and a Postal Service refusing to deliver the mail, just to name the few I was exposed to with the mandatory mail in process). Loss of trust is a serious problem. Marriages cannot survive, business fail, and governments collapse. Perhaps the greatest loss since I began this blog is trust in anyone and anything. The left does not trust the right and vice versa. It is very hard to regain trust, for once lost it is often nonreturnable.

14.  "The electronic transaction, information and entertainment" market: People buy most everything online. In 1980 when I went to Warner, my boss, Gus Hauser, wanted me to create an on-line system to do all three of the above. We had a 2-way cable system called QUBE and I had a team of brilliant folks willing to try to do the job. We accomplished it in two years so by 1982 we had the system in proof-of-concept mode in New York and Pittsburgh. The problem was we were too early. I had IBM PCs,. Hayes Modems, and early versions of color monitors. We had banks, travel companies, Atari and Warner films, Department Stores, and a complete mix. Unfortunately, some of our Board thought it was a dumb idea, for they stated no one would ever shop or be entertained or bank this way. Some of these futurists went on to head major information age companies, and perhaps were later astute enough to see what they missed. The biggest loss were the dozen patents which were prepared but never filed. Warner unfortunately, under new management, also though there was no future. Amazon is about half way to accomplishing what we did forty years ago. The lesson, never be too early.

Who Is Important

 New Jersey has issued its latest plan. A rather long winded document but it is telling.

They claim a Level 1B group to contain: 

Food service workers,

Port Authority workers,

New Jersey Transit workers,

Teachers, staff, and childcare workers

Workers who support radio, print, internet and television news and media services

Other critical workers (CISA),

Other essential workers (whatever that means)

Level 1C is composed of college students, the obese, migrant workers, those living in overcrowded housing, tribal populations, people who work in crowded environments, including allegedly prison inmates.

After all of these above, we then have those over 65. This group has the highest mortality but is placed at the bottom of the State's Plan. Internet bloggers get higher priority! And what is an "other essential worker"? As we have been showing for almost a year now, the Govs mandate in LTC facilities resulted in thousands of deaths. Now the people at most risk who have contributed their lives to the State get pushed to the bottom. This is a true revival of the "Death Panels" writ loud. But you can be assured that the ruling class will be considered essential, essential or otherwise. In my opinion this demonstrates the abject malignancy of our society and its Social Justice hierarchy.

This is indeed Social Justice writ loud. It is the Titanic where it is not women and children but the Press and Bankers. The NY Times supports this strategy. Thus we must accept it. So must I and others like me cease our cancer research, our value is less than that of thieves and murderers. Medical Ethicists are in my opinion akin to what we may have seen in Europe in the early 1940s, they become the cullers of the Social Justice Warrior class, they determine human value, based not on the consent of the governed but on principles that ensure their survival and dominance.

The NY Times reports on this process. They note:

The question of where groups of workers stand in the line for vaccines has yet to be resolved in New York or in a majority of other states, according to a review by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. The federal government is expected to issue final recommendations on who should be deemed essential soon. But it is largely up to states to prioritize vaccine distribution among those workers...“If your workers go first and you win that argument based on a political appeal, who are you bumping behind you?” he said. “You may push further back people who many public health experts say should go before you. It may be a cohort that the public feels should be treated more urgently than you.” That hasn’t stopped industries that believe they have a credible claim from going public with their pleas, using a combination of data and emotional appeals to make their case.

 Thus the original CDC guideline has been demolished by industry favoritism based on financial political support. You can "buy your life" if you get a better position in line.This really tells us something about our leaders. They can be bought for just a few pieces of silver. Shame!