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My dad played for Ray Fisher…

My dad played for Ray Fisher at M, always quoted Ray as saying “Every time you think you let in two runs” — that was in the late 1940’s.  
 

Like much in baseball, it goes back a ways.

My wife and I, brothers and…

My wife and I, brothers and sons are all in.  Let’s go, Blue!

Lots of stunting, twists…

Lots of stunting, twists that got through before offense coaches Dx’d them & remedied.  Two series to get adjustments in.  Quick, effective.  The eval needs to be on team reaction time to adjust & shut down, not that the rushes happened at all.  IU coming off bye, time to put in some things to mess w M.  Working for two series doesn’t mean a lot in a, what, 12-possession game?  Key is to not let possessions get away while figuring things out.

Strange how some people just…

Strange how some people just look like asshholes.

Let IZ and OZ go — low value…

Let IZ and OZ go — low value shit.  

Lots of misdirection 

Lots of misdirection 

Whew — Josiah Stewart is a…

Whew — Josiah Stewart is a vulnerability — edged like 3 times, coupla good runs past him

The word is “dominant”.  Did…

The word is “dominant”.  Did you graduate from the university with that lack of command of the language?

Mosher-Jordan — 3rd floor,…

Mosher-Jordan — 3rd floor, 1976-1977. Great cafeteria, proximity to Stockwell a bonus, CCRB, Med Sci II great study spot, Palmer Field, traying in the winter in front of the dorm or at the Arb.  Great spot.

What is the Peach Bowl?

What is the Peach Bowl?

And Wiscy?

And Minny?

 

And Wiscy?

And Minny?

 

Going forward?  Is there…

Going forward?  Is there another direction in which we proceed in time?  

Not directed at you, but that is one of the stupidest expressions coming from business jargon — and there is a shitload of that.

An exec I worked with referred to our financial expectations “on a go-forward basis”.  Could have saved himself 5 words and years of guffaws in remembrances of that ignominious statement.

 

Geez, I don’t know.  Maybe…

Geez, I don’t know.  Maybe instead he’ll improve a lot moving backward.

 

"as Sainristil(+1) goes by…

"as Sainristil(+1) goes by with a moon-walking safety"

That's gold, Jerry, gold!

Still laughing.

There is stuff to like and…

There is stuff to like and much to fear, the greatest of which is the coaching choices in, well, everything.

The two items that make me feel somewhat positive are:

  1. The quality of coaches that have been brought in
  2. The reports of rapport and discussions amongst the coaches.

This might be a case of synergy with a few changes turning into big changes because of intelligence and ability to find solutions together.  That was a hallmark of the Bo staffs, the screaming matches in coaches' meetings that put passion and real thinking on the table.  The screaming part isn't essential -- it worked for the Bo-era personalities on the staff.

Hart is a thinker, worker, competitor and vocal contributor with a history of making backs and offenses better, learning from some really good people and being an important piece at IU.

Sherrone is a collaborator, emotional, big personality as a recruiter and a worker.

The QB coach, Weiss, is a data guy, distinguishes quantitatively between what works and what doesn't, is a thinker, teacher, detail guy, and a collaborator from reports.

Jay H was a weak link at RB Coach, but has a good prior history with TEs and STs.  I don't think he's distinguished himself as a thinker and collaborator, but guys play hard for him.

Gattis, well, the jury is hung at best -- he hasn't distinguished himself as anything really but a big talker.  He didn't bring any guys with him, which was a warning sign to me.  I think he's probably not the guy, but surrounded by Hart, Weiss, and what I also think is a rejuvenated Jim, could be ok in a collaborative environment.  

Looking at Jim, I see a guy who has been dealing with a lot of stuff over the past couple years, including his own health, having a preemie who seems finally to be out of the woods, being a father of a young family at an age where that makes at least three reeeeeelllly tough jobs: Head Coach, dad, dad of a sick infant, oh, and the heartbeat of Michigan football.  I don't think Jim is a genius, but where he's succeeded, he's had a great group of coaches around him, guys that are into it in the same ways.  His partnership with Jedd was a real highlight for him, a terrific pairing.  He thought he'd get that with Pep and Drev, but no soap.  The biggest problem hasn't been not making changes, but not finding what he needed.

Going with the group of old guys felt right as he could be more CEO with all the pressures around him including family, but he got let down by guys he really respected and in Jim's world, respect equals love -- the guy's heart is on his sleeve or somewhere else outside his chest.  You never need to question Jim's passion and his competitiveness.  What he needs is having guys around him who are very smart, know how to succeed, love to collaborate, and bring the energy that he feels.

This is probably way too much amateur analysis.  The product on the field has been symptomatic of some really big dysfunctions from the coaching staff.  I've been surprised that Jim has had difficulty getting the right group around him, but the success that he had before M may have led him to the wrong conclusions about how to build a staff.  Building your leadership team is the number one job of the chief, and he's missed at the most inopportune time where people want to love him, and some of his guys have just flat let him down.

Anyway, that's out of my mind on a Tuesday afternoon.

70,000 truck drivers and 10…

70,000 truck drivers and 10,000 alums, said Ufer.

He was working through…

He was working through something.  He had an owie.  

Atta boy.  Suck it up, spit…

Atta boy.  Suck it up, spit on it, rub up some dirt and get on with it.

GOAT gonna GOAT.

GOAT gonna GOAT.

Butch Cassidy 

Butch Cassidy 

Basically, policy isn’t…

Basically, policy isn’t behavior.  Michigan happens to have a copious amount of FU behavior.  No masks, big gatherings (snowmobile bars — see Otsego County numbers — basically rebellion parties — see Macomb county numbers), new more contagious variants, legislature and courts undermine policy, then the governor relents, and boom.  And the new strains seem to affect younger people more than the original version.  Virus gotta virus.
 

 

For all the minimizers, just…

For all the minimizers, just go to a Covid party and get it over with, pick up your herd-thinning lottery ticket.  Just stay home and watch the Price is Right for a couple weeks or until you expire.

Whew.

Home at last.

Whew.

Home at last.

Leelanau County is my favorite place on the planet.  Grew up in TC, been around the world a number of times, home is still out in the county.

Great spot -- did you get…

Great spot -- did you get the pike on the river, below Mio or near McMaster's Br section?

We're heading up this weekend for a week -- always drop in at Gates, for flies and impulse buys.

What a tough year.  All the…

What a tough year.  All the virus effects.  A malignant party holding the country prisoner and killing hostages.  Elijah gone. Now John Lewis.  The reminders of nobility and sacrifice are poignant and telling.

We can only hope for hope.

Bubba, this just ain't your…

Bubba, this just ain't your day.

Sure, in total numbers bigger countries can have more cases than smaller countries.  The measure of performance for valid comparison is what proportion of your population have you managed to protect or chosen to put at risk.

Sweden is still popping the pooch, though having taken some rational decisions is going a better direction than the slow student in the class from the US.

Michigan better start taking this seriously again, or it's a mess redux, which would be unforgivable.

 

Well, here's Sweden who didn…

Well, here's Sweden who didn't get hammered right off because they have the highest rate of single living in the world, a low percentage of poor people, high access to health care and a healthy population.  However, even with the lessons of the early-hit locales, Sweden went their own way until just recently when they began tight controls.  

Since then, Sweden's figures look a lot like the downslope of Michigan's figures after controls went into effect.  Michigan having taken the lesson early has been able to begin to open, and we are seeing the effects of that over the last 3 weeks.  Re-establishing some controls will do what they did before, or Michigan goes the way of Florida by opening up like a noisy minority want.

Florida messing up is all the more unforgivable in the face of the evidence they could see 3-4 months ago.  Believing they'd be different or not caring are two sides of the same casket.

The Federal government has gone from denial to misleading to surrendering to aiding the viral enemy, a fuck-up for the generations to come to ponder the idiocy of America's Worst Generation.  Coming just as the last of the Greatest Generation are dying off, this is a special humiliation.

 

 

 

You’re the one that wants to…

You’re the one that wants to wait to see how many dead people come from doing nothing about a disease.

No, I’ll get my moral lessons where I have a chance to learn real morality, not from whatever odd sauce you picked up on the street.

Solid.

Solid.

You’re a teacher?  What the…

You’re a teacher?  What the hell do you teach, underwater basket weaving?  Glad my kids didn’t go to school in your district if you are an exemplar there. 

 

For fuck’s sake.

Herd…

For fuck’s sake.

Herd immunity requires a shit ton of innocent people to get sick and a portion to die.  Like 20 million Americans dead.

 

The vaccine gets to immunity without al the graves, sick people, some permanently disabled, and economic devastation prolonged over the 3-4 years required to get to herd immunity.

 

is that clear enough?

Sweden fucked the dog. …

Sweden fucked the dog.  Other countries are fucking more dogs. So, Sweden is ok.

That’s your argument?

 

Yeah, go with that.

 

Whatever.

 

Glad you’re not in any position of influence.

Kind of a grim experiment.

Kind of a grim experiment.

Oh, shit, that 4-5% mortality rate is real.

What is the right number of times to run that study in order to accept the answer?

i hope you are fortunate enough for it to remain an abstraction for you.

 

For the dead, the critically ill and the chronic outcomes yet to be seen past our 6 months of experience with the disease, it will have been all too concrete.

4-5% of people who contract…

4-5% of people who contract the disease and are diagnosed die.  
 

Where localities stay open more people contract the disease.

 

Therefore... <complete this sentence for extra credit>.

You forgot the /s.

/s

You forgot the /s.

/s

There.  Got it for you.

A coupla countries here…

A coupla countries here fucked the dog and a few did not.

Can anyone tell the difference?

The ones that didn't are on their way to getting their economies running.

The ones that did are going to be in the grave digging business for a long time.

Sweden, by the way, has instituted tight controls.  Anyone wanna guess when they did that?

THAT is precisely the point,…

THAT is precisely the point, and the only salient one.

The money/economy part is manageable through fungible assets, and a matter of will and wisdom.

The lives are not fungible.

https://talkingpointsmemo…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/making-sense-of-the-happy-mystery-of-the-declining-covid-death-toll

Behind a paywall, but here is a portion:

Here is the number of daily reported cases graphed with a seven day moving average of the daily death toll in Florida. You can see very faintly the absolute numbers plotted too. But that data is noisy so I’ve pushed that to the background for the mortality numbers and focused us on the seven day moving average.

As you can see the death toll clearly is moving up and displaced by roughly three weeks from the beginning of the uptick in the case counts. We can see a similar lag in the first surge in the Spring.

Here is the same graph and dataset for Texas.

Here is the same graph and data set for Arizona. The drop in fatalities in recent days seems to clearly be a reporting lag. The state reported one fatality Monday and 4 on Sunday.

In all three states we see a pretty similar pattern. Fatalities are following cases on a two or three week delay and the skyrocketing case counts of the last week or so will likely be mirrored later this month. What also seems clear is that limited testing early in the pandemic simply missed the scope of the early outbreak which lead to the earlier rise in deaths. That is not surprising. Testing was very limited, especially in this less hard hit states in April.

 

Lots of folks buying tickets in the Herd-Thinning Lottery by going into close quarters and not wearing masks.

If it weren't for the risk to the rest of the 300 million who haven't been exposed, I'd just say, well, they believe in personal responsibility, and wearing a mask and keeping away from people is just toooooo haarrrdddd, so good luck with that ticket.

But, you aren't, because when one buys that ticket, one is also buying a batch for other people who don't want them.

I ain't a gift to nobody, but I'd prefer to stay part of the herd for a few more years, see my grandson and his folks, my older boy and his fiancee' get married, see my folks, see my youngest boy graduate from college and get on his way, see my beautiful wife every day, and pray for a better world.

Best — The Tin Drum.

Worst …

Best — The Tin Drum.

Worst — The Hunt for RedOctober

Great article and great for…

Great article and great for M football.  Makes me feel even worse about #2's give tendency and the, what, 4,5,6 missed balls to wideouts.

Man, it was fun when…

Man, it was fun when football was fun.

Izzat what competent…

Izzat what competent quarterback play looks like?

By the way, you didn't…

By the way, you didn't answer the question:

What's the right number of dead?

Who close to you is ok to die?

Really, that's your argument…

Really, that's your argument?  I know you are, but what am I?  Really?

Have a nice day.

You totally get it, Yogi.

You totally get it, Yogi.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

So, you want to make…

So, you want to make qualitative decisions on who is worth saving and who we can afford to lose?  Really?  We put enormous sums into preserving life and have worked for centuries to come to value trade-offs on what we can or will do to preserve life.  Most deaths are ones we've come to accept because absolutely nothing can be done, regardless of cost.  Another number includes deaths we invest great sums to avoid.  In this case, we have invested a few months, squandered some portion of the time available, and some are saying, well, that's enough, it isn't worth saving a few more.

Of the 330 million people in this country, we have 800,000 known positive, 3.4 million tested negative, some of whom may be sero-positive and possibly immune.  We have some serology studies that say maybe the positive number is understated by 50x -- let's say there are 50 million positive in the country, or around 15% of the population, mostly concentrated in and around higher-density areas.  Actions taken there have taken growth rates from 1.35 per day to under 1.0 in some of those areas.  What happens next is movement to lower density areas, in which growth rates (number of interactions times probability of transmission per interaction) will be lower because the numbers of interactions are lower.  

So broader areas, like states rather than metro areas, won't likely see the 1.35 numbers but they will see persistent lower numbers of growth rate until either testing is ubiquitous so we can segregate the herd, or more than 70% of the herd (231 million people) is immunized either through infection or vaccine.  For just the US, from our 50 million likely positives, we have 180-odd million people to infect or vaccinate.  Treatments may lower the severity of illnesses, but time to test in clinic and availability at the right time for the right patients (say, like ventilators) will be needed to lower morbidity and mortality.  Producing 180 million vaccine doses is going to take a lot of time, even after we get past making sure we don't produce vaccines that are more dangerous than the disease.

Several states are already seeing early second bumps as the pandemic moves to more rural areas.  Some more rural states have growth rates that are above 1.1, and the population tends older and less healthy.  Death rates among the infected will go up.  Authorities may take measures to limit growth rate, like distancing, masks, closures, etc that they may not yet have done.  A few weeks or months will go by, and they'll be pressured to open up.  And the growth rate will resume.  It'll take a few cycles of that until the herd immunity is achieved, as I said, via infection or vaccination.

Here's the perspective:

We are at the first turn of infections that have been mostly a plague of dense urban areas.  Those are flattening out.  That good news gets projected onto the entire population, including the naive population that do not live in areas with any significant exposure -- counties with 50,000 people and maybe a few positives.  With that first turn of the pandemic, without looking at the future, a lot of people want to loosen things up, let people start traveling and doing business freely.  We still have 180 million people to infect or vaccinate -- we get a bunch of dead moms, dads, etc.

To make it personal, until you know that you are immunized (infected and no longer shedding virus, or vaccinated) or you know that roughly 70% or more of the people around you are also immunized, you have a high probability of getting the virus and spreading it.  And until 200 million tests are available and performed inside of about 5 weeks, you won't know until you or someone around you is sick, possibly critically so.

 

The difference in the…

The difference in the choices you offered and the choices at stake here is personal choice of actions and policy choices by detached individuals affecting millions.

The childish approach is your ad absurdum and red herring arguments.  The only people who are facing consequences for their own individual conscious behavioral choices are health and safety professionals dealing with known infected individuals, and the people who congregate unprotected with individuals whose infectious status is unknown.  People in both groups are being infected and getting disease.  The second group includes people who are making their own risk choice (and making it for family members) and people who have been compelled to congregate, such as workers being coerced to work and people like the voters in Wisconsin compelled to vote in person.

It's a problem when a segment of society abstracts death in support of a position that serves economic interests that have near-term alternatives and fails to understand the effects that will be seen in subsequent days, weeks, months and even years that have no alternatives once committed.

The people absent from policy discussions should be people condemned with your inability in analysis, but unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Policy choice is what I do for a living and I'm good at it.

Some of these debates of…

Some of these debates of sickness and death in abstraction remind me of statement (attributed, perhaps mistakenly, to Stalin) that one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.

When people get around to minimizing or abstracting life and death, the right question is, what is the right number, the acceptable number of dead mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, and which of these and how many others close to you is acceptable for you to lose personally?

The World at War, narrated…

The World at War, narrated by Lawrence Olivier — incredible viewing.

anything by Ken Burns

Like the high usage rate…

Like the high usage rate from Manual Excel.  High assist rate, not much above the rim.