atoq
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Posts posted by atoq
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3 hours ago, LTS said:
If I am recalling the situation correctly, Colombia was going to deny the planes. It doesn't matter what they had done prior. It matters that they said they would deny the planes. Trump threatened a tariff and Colombia changed course. Regardless of opinions on the matter those items seem factual.
Also, let's not interject petty personal attacks regarding spelling. You knew what was being discussed. If you were unsure if the poster meant the country Colombia you could have asked for clarification.
Colombia received migrants prior to this administration. The tariff threat was a reaction to a crisis of Trump's own making by acting needlessly cruel for no purpose. Please explain how anyone is any better off after this.
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17 hours ago, SABRES 0311 said:
He didn’t back down on the Colombian tariff. Columbia conceded and there was no reason to enact the tariff.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/26/politics/colombia-tariffs-trump-deportation-flights
I didn’t even say I was for or against tariffs. Just that Trump has made them a part of his economic plan.
What exactly was accomplished with the Colombia tariff spat? Colombia accepted planes of returned migrants throughout the Biden administration.
I appreciate you at least learned how to spell Colombia after your first post and checking with CNN.
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8 minutes ago, Weave said:
Ullmark told the world why he signed with Boston. Unless you think he was being deceitful, we know exactly why. He left because after his father’s death he felt the need to change things in his life, including the team he played for.
Ok, but who signed him to a 1 year deal via arbitration walking him to unrestricted free agency? Either lock up the player or trade him if he isn't in the plan. It's poor asset management. A common argument here is "it's not easy for KA to pick up a good goalie". Yes, because good GMs don't give them away for nothing.
I believe Ullmark felt he needed a personal change. I don't believe for a second that going from a perennial losing team (after one of their worst seasons) to one of the best teams in the league didn't factor into his decision making, especially when the good team shows they want you by offering more money not pinching pennies in arbitration. Not something someone would likely say to the press, and not a compelling personal story a league reporter may choose to focus on.
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6 hours ago, tom webster said:
6) Vancouver - they've been out of the playoffs since 2014/2015 I believe
Strange point to make about Vancouver in a post about how we shouldn't focus too much on the distant past with the Sabres. More relevant with Vancouver is that they are one of the top teams in the league this year, but that doesn't back up the "other organizations aren't passing us by" conclusion you're straining for.
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11 hours ago, Pimlach said:
I assume this is a joke? Kaleta is no coach.
Matt Ellis as GM and I just might burn my 1970 vintage Sabres Jersey.
9 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:I took @atoq's suggestions as satirical. (Or am I now missing your joke?)
Apologies for making wild exaggerations to suggest someone could be promoted from failed Sabres assistant coach to Sabres GM without first managing the Harborcenter.
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My prediction:
Assistant coaches: Nathan Paetsch and Patrick Kaleta
Matt Ellis promoted to GM.
Kevyn Adams promoted to President and extended.
We want people that can't go anywhere else, I mean, that want to be here. Hire from within to keep developing the organizational culture. Outside voices concerned with winning will only create conflict in the locker room.
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20 hours ago, Weave said:
This is ***** stupid. Its a beer league. Everyone is there for recreation and exercise. Everyone has a real job to get to the next day. It’s absolutely ridiculous to expect someone in that situation to have the means, personality, or will to come to someone’s aid here. It’s a ***** beer league.
And yeah, some white knight should have come to defend her honor. Now there is some real progress. LMAO
She came into a situation where she expected to be treated as equal. Was plastered in a league that certainly regulated contact, as evidenced by the penalty handed out. And then taunted afterwards. And she’s the one who handled it poorly. *eyeroll*
I totally agree with this.
Some absolutely terrible takes in this thread. To those posters, you aren't coming across as bravely un-PC, you just look like idiots.
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You all need to be more patient. It's only fair to give Matt Ellis a few more years to learn how to coach the power play.
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So tired of this loser team.
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12 minutes ago, Pimlach said:
Highways and interstates ruined the look of the waterfront. They actually made it easier to get downtown but the location of some of them is just wrong aesthetically.
They actually made it easier to leave downtown.
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21 hours ago, Pimlach said:
I would call the Metro rail a failure since it killed a portion of downtown just to build it.
The highways were the failure that killed much larger portions of downtown.
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21 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:
There wasn't any this offseason that actually went to UFA
This is the worst argument. Goaltending has been a problem since KA was hired years ago in 2020, and he's only let the position get weaker since then.
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Besides goaltending, my biggest (yet pettiest) complaint is the "players that want to be here" slogan, which is such a cop-out coming from the person whose literal job it is to convince the right players they should want to be in buffalo, either through financial offerings or by selling the culture/region/future of the team.
Obviously you can't convince everyone, but can we stop repeating this as an organizational motto, especially now that the Eichel-era transition is over? What does this even mean going forward?
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3 hours ago, Eleven said:
Seriously, he's had three seasons and nearly four off-seasons to straighten out the goaltending situation. That's his job. Other GMs seem to have managed. If Levi doesn't work out, Adams has to go.
I agree with this take. He's been neglecting the position since he started the job 3 years ago with Ullmark and vision-impaired Hutton on the roster. Not only has he not strengthened the position in the short-term, he let the best option we had walk for absolutely nothing, after the club spent years developing the player (within the division no less) That's just poor asset management, whatever you think about Ullmark or his Vezina. Get the player locked up or find another solution.
I'm excited about Levi's future with the club (almost more than any other prospect), and hope he defies past trends with rookie goalies, but this position is still the biggest doubt going into the season.
Also, the exaggerated topics obviously don't represent what most people think who are critical of recent goaltending decisions. A GM can make good moves, like Adams certainly has, but still neglect key aspects that limit the overall success of the club. Darcy, Murray and Botteril all made some good moves, but made some serious mistakes in specific areas too (playoff toughness, culture/character, finding a good coach, respectively).
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23 hours ago, Mustache of God said:
"Why hire a designer when our daughter can do it better?"
A management philosophy that apparently extends to "Why hire a GM when the yes man at the arena can do it better?"
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23 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:
This guy has squandered a lot of credibility with me since I started following him as a counter-weight to MSM coverage of the pandemic, but this Tweet thread seems to have some merit to it.
^
Lol at "squandered", as if the guy gives a sh1t that he's lost credibility with me, which the term "squandered" implies.
I'm confused. I followed the link to learn more and found a story very different that what this twitter pundit describes, in which Sanford Health is trying to distance themselves from an outgoing executive (who has a business background) who made comments downplaying the crisis and need for masks.
Was the story later updated? Did Alex not read the original story? Did Alex have enough accountability to update his take on the story? As is so often the case with internet pundits, it doesn't appear so.
It also seems he misrepresents how the situation in the Dakota's is being represented, at least in the media. I've seen articles pointing out that the Dakota's have among the worst metrics for hospitalization and mortality rates in the country, and that they are having to allow covid positive medical staff continue to work out of necessity. Both of these seem to indicate there is legitimate reason for concern, and that the situation is precarious.
Is Alex's "team apocalypse" take based on people on Twitter reacting/overreacting to measured stories such as the above? If so, who cares?
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36 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
According to reports the affidavits of voter fraud in Michigan are actually using election data from Minnesota because the lawyers for Trump mixed up MN v MI as abbreviations.
That expert confused Minnesota and Michigan. He was counting the population of towns in Minnesota, seeing they did not match Michigan towns, and finding fraud.
That's right up there with bringing a convicted sex-offender from Trenton to Philadelphia to pretend to be a PA poll watcher alleging fraud in a press conference in front of a landscaping company.
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1 hour ago, nfreeman said:
Well, Sweden has a much lower per capita Covid death rate than Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and the UK, both cumulatively and in the last 14 days.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea
So, regardless of how sure one is in one's position, there is plenty of data to support a different view.
I'll also note that I wasn't even advocating for the Swedish approach vs the UK approach -- just pointing out that "the science" isn't "settled."
I agree the science isn't settled and we all have much to learn on the subject.
When reviewing the data, its also important to consider the many factors that impact virus transmission and mortality rates from country to country outside of government policies on lockdowns, including societal factors like population density, health indicators, age distribution, health care system capacity, availability of health insurance, faith in public institutions, and local customs for personal space.
Most of the countries you mentioned that Sweden compares favorably too are in continental Europe. When compared to other Nordic countries, Sweden doesn't look so good anymore.
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2 hours ago, nfreeman said:
whether approaches like Sweden's are better than approaches like the UK's, and other important issues relating to handling the virus.
The "Swedish model" has been brought up several times in this thread, as though its a strategy that could be implemented in the US. Its important to note the incredible pre-COVID societal differences between the two countries. Here is the ambassador from Sweden explaining some of those differences:
QuoteKarin Ulrika Olofsdotter, the Swedish ambassador in Washington, stressed that widespread trust in the country’s public agencies meant that most Swedes would voluntarily heed social distancing guidelines. Sweden’s robust social safety net and enhanced paid sick leave, she argued, would help ensure more Swedes would stay home if they felt symptoms or feared contracting the virus at their workplaces.
It's also important to note that Sweden has universal public health care (mostly government funded), meaning there aren't ~28 million people without health insurance like in the United States.
@nfreeman Are you advocating for universal health care and enhanced paid sick leave, following the Swedish model? 😃
Over the summer, we were told that Sweden wouldn't face a harsh second wave in the fall due to acquired immunity.
QuoteAnders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist...predicted that Sweden would have accrued a higher level of immunity than its neighbors and that the impact of a second wave would “probably be quite low.”
Let's check in on how Sweden has been doing recently with COVID-19. https://www.ft.com/content/1e0ac31d-5abf-4a18-ab3e-eec9744a4d31
Quote“Four days ago [Sweden] had eight times higher cases per capita than Finland and three and a half times more than Norway. They were supposed to have it worse off than us in the autumn because we were going to have immunity.”
Sweden has also maintained high COVID-19 mortality rates as the pandemic has progressed. .
So people are still getting sick and dying from COVID-19 in Sweden. Following @nfreeman's theory, these losses should be offset by the economic advantages from avoiding lock downs, thereby mitigating cascading negative impacts of job loss and economic hardship.
Sweden's GDP slumped 8.6% in Q2, more sharply than its neighbors despite its no-lockdown policy
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls-8pc-in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8
Given all of the above, it seems likely that Sweden will be changing their policies towards COVID-19 in the near future. In fact they've already started this by limiting gathering sizes. It's hard to believe that people still advocate for the "Swedish model" even though recent evidence indicates it isn't working and the baseline social context was so different that this model wouldn't have been replicable in a country like the United States.
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4 minutes ago, atoq said:
The correct argument is if this is an election is being rightfully disputed with legitimate evidence (it's not) or if it's being disputed only by a serial-liar and his subordinates who are utilizing wild conspiracy theories, obviously futile legal cases, and pressuring local election committees to throw out votes they don't like in order to subvert our democratic process (it is).
I forgot another way they are attempting to subvert the democratic process: leaning on partisan state legislators to completely ignore the election results in swing states https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-strategy/trumps-election-power-play-persuade-republican-legislators-to-do-what-u-s-voters-did-not-idUSKBN27Z30G?il=0
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53 minutes ago, LTS said:
The argument has continued to be, it's disputed (it is) and it's not over (it's not).
The correct argument is if this is an election is being rightfully disputed with legitimate evidence (it's not) or if it's being disputed only by a serial-liar and his subordinates who are utilizing wild conspiracy theories, obviously futile legal cases, and pressuring local election committees to throw out votes they don't like in order to subvert our democratic process (it is).
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On 10/6/2020 at 8:48 PM, SwampD said:On 10/6/2020 at 6:27 PM, nfreeman said:
9th bolded -- again, this isn't presented as a scientific study. Your (and, to be fair, others') insistence on criticizing it as such is like criticizing an apple for not being an orange, and likely derives from, ironically enough, your cognitive assumptions about what is best for society.
No offense, but seems a bit disingenuous.
The first line of the webpage, "As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists,…" (FTR, wtf is a public health scientist?)
It is absolutely disingenuous. Besides the good points made by @SwampD about the the webpage, let's look to how @nfreeman himself how described the declaration:
On 10/6/2020 at 10:52 AM, nfreeman said:I think the main takeaway from the declaration is that these epidemiologists/HC professionals believe, as a scientific matter, that a broad reopening will have substantially fewer destructive consequences than a broad lockdown.
He claimed this was a scientific take. When it was pointed out there is little to no science in the article, he resorted to name-calling and personal attacks.
@nfreeman you are right, I am a child. And in my first year of middle school I learned that if you want to make a scientific argument, you should provide some data and citations. If you take away the high profile university titles and the number of 'public health scientists', there is no science provided nor productive ideas proposed. It's of course possible that the premise of the declaration is correct or partially correct, but these kinds of decisions should be data-driven because this is matter of life and death for a significant number of people, which was really my point in responding.
Let's look at another recent general non-technical statement by the scientific community, so that we can compare how information is presented: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
This article helps compare global COVID impacts by providing some statistics (with respected sources) like the following:
QuoteAccording to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering,1 the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000.
There is also information on how various countries have adapted testing programs, which has proven to be an effective strategy to help reopen economies.
QuoteWhile the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially [in the US], the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have.2
There is also a graph provided at the citation link:
As for @nfreeman saying I'm projecting my own cognitive assumptions about what is best for society, at no point have I made the argument that strict lock downs are absolutely necessary. I'm usually only drawn out from lurking when I see really bad science takes that I feel compelled to refute with hopes of an actual ensuing conversation.
Other parts of the world have enacted various strategies that helped dramatically reduce initial COVID infection numbers, followed by careful reopening strategies (a process made easier by more initial control of the virus) that have kept COVID rates substantially lower that in the US. However, I don't think there is currently any political will or capacity to do this in the US, as demonstrated by nearly every step taken in the pandemic response over the past 10 months (see NEJM link above). Even worse, the pandemic has now become another battle in the dumb American Culture Wars (intentionally so, by those who seek to mitigate criticism), where even non-invasive measures that can help vulnerable members of society are perceived as controversial. The shoddy science that surfaces here is part of that.
To the point others have made here, the Great Barrington Declaration is obviously focused on whether or not there should be state-mandated lockdown protocols, in their words "concerns about...impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies" (in the title), which makes it a discussion about 'Government responses to COVID', and therefore shouldn't be allowed within this thread. People on this board have been complaining about uneven moderation because mostly political arguments barely obscured behind shoddy science (like Taro's HCQ study and the nfreeman's GBD), have been allowed and even shared by moderators. Yet, reflection or criticism of how governments have handled COVID isn't allowed, even though the options we have today for reopening the economy are directly related to how well the crisis was managed over the past months. Also, if economic concerns are primary, there are a wide range of fiscal policies that can be enacted to help individuals and businesses deal with economic hardships without putting many people's health at risk. This is another entirely underwhelming response that probably can't be mentioned here.
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1 hour ago, nfreeman said:
First bolded -- do you not think economic activity -- i.e. millions of job losses -- affects public health outcomes?
Second bolded -- no -- they say this, which I also quoted upthread:
Please read more carefully. I repeated the part you quoted about the potential health results. Do you receive vaccinations or cancer screenings at restaurants, museums, concerts, sporting events, etc? There are lots of safe options for outdoor exercise to maintain cardiovascular health, leaving 'deteriorating mental health'. I acknowledged the link between unemployment and deteriorating mental health in bold #2 (perhaps not clearly enough), but the authors provide no evidence or analysis about and whether or not people will be more sad if they lose their job, or if the society lets the virus goes unchecked a lot of people die, including friends and family.
Nor do they make a compelling case for how things can be reopened without unchecked spreading of the virus. Let's check their suggestions.
QuoteAdopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
As discussed, entirely staffing nursing homes with people with acquired immunity is entirely unrealistic given training and overall demands needed to conduct this type of work. It's really hard work and requires training, experience and a certain temperament. That and grocery delivery are the only specific suggestions from this declaration. Otherwise they say its possible to do and well within the scope of their profession. I get this is meant to be a general statement and not a detailed plan, but do you really find this a compelling argument, when they offer no data or specific plans? It seems strange to me this supposed broad coalition of experts can't suggest anything else, and had to resort to "We can totally do this" when the reality of the situation has shown otherwise, given the common dynamic of one superspreader can infect many people.
The highest levels of Western leadership can’t even adhere to suggested bio security rules in their inner circles. Why does the “Great Barrington Declaration,” depend on the fanciful thinking that society at large can functionally implement these safeguards?
1 hour ago, nfreeman said:Third bolded -- I don't see any claim of a consensus anywhere in their statement.
This sentiment is implied in the how the authors (and you and others reposting online) have stressed the prestigious academic institutions involved and the overall number of doctors that have signed on, regardless of their actual expertise in this field.
1 hour ago, nfreeman said:Fourth bolded -- the declaration doesn't claim to be a cost-benefit study that is submitted for peer review.
They are certainly making cost-benefit conclusions that could have serious implications on public health, yet they provide no statistics, citations or evidence to support those conclusions, which is inherently dangerous. The following is literally the only statistic in the entire piece (age stratified mortality):
QuoteWe know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young.
The stat is mentioned tangentially while contrasting the two extreme age groups and ignoring all of the age ranges in between to whom the risk is considerably higher than the flu. A single statistic, poorly explained or even misrepresented, is inexcusably sloppy. The role of data driven decision making is not discussed once, despite the number of biostatisticians and epidemiologists that have signed this document. Of course it doesn't claim to be submitted for peer-review, because the authors would undoubtedly know given their professions that any scientific conclusions provided without any evidence would be immediately dismissed. My point is this declaration doesn't pass any scientific muster. These are people who are using their positions and credibility to bend science to what they believe is best for society.
1 hour ago, nfreeman said:Sixth bolded -- what is your expertise in this area? Is it comparable to that of the authors?
Nice try, making this about my expertise. I engage with the scientific community enough to know that the scientific method is based on observation, empiricism, rigor, and skepticism of cognitive assumptions. This declaration doesn't involve any of these things. I won't ask for your credentials.
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46 minutes ago, nfreeman said:
I think the main takeaway from the declaration is that these epidemiologists/HC professionals believe, as a scientific matter, that a broad reopening will have substantially fewer destructive consequences than a broad lockdown.
This piece begins with an attempt to make a scientific argument about public health (cancer screenings, vaccinations, etc.) and concern for the underprivileged, and then finishes by advocating for a broad reopening of sports, schools and cultural institutions, which seem much more related to economic activity than public health outcomes, and therefore not a 'scientific matter'. The only link between what they propose to reopen and public health is the vague mention of 'mental health deterioration', which also likely applies to the friends and families of the 210,000 people who have died in the US alone.
Some more issues with this site: They are trying to convey their perspective as the consensus view among epidemiologists, and that is certainly not the case. Many of the public health professionals that signed onto this declaration are not epidemiologists. Some of the signatories have published highly flawed statistical models https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/ Furthermore the authors provide no information on the basis of their argument, whether it be citations to peer-reviewed scientific papers or details on the cost-benefit analysis utilized to arrive at their conclusion, instead hoping the reader will take their word given their positions of authority. They likely issued an open-letter knowing this wouldn't pass peer review. There are a ton of variables that would influence a cost-benefit study like this, including what timeline did they consider for a potential vaccine? Some of their suggestions for reopening are nonsensical. How feasible does it seem to entirely staff nursing homes with people who have acquired immunity?
In my opinion, this website doesn't hold up to scientific or general critical review and is only intended to provide fodder for politicians to say "See, the scientists said we can reopen" and for politically motivated contrarians to champion on internet message boards.
I also totally agree with Weave's take that separating the vulnerable from the non-vulnerable in our society would be almost impossible. The US government has been unable to provide consistent messaging on fundamental aspects of virus control (does mask wearing work?, can the virus can be transmitted through the air? etc.). The highest level decision makers in the US are unable to abide by basic mask wearing, testing, and self-isolation protocols to protect small, affluent and isolated groups of people, yet some think its realistic be able to carefully separate out the millions of vulnerable people in our society?
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Came Across Interesting Quote About Trump Today and I’m Seeking Opinion of His Supporters
in Topics
Posted
COLOMBIA accepted migrants under the previous administration. Trump administration treated people as subhuman. COLOMBIA refused to accept the migrants under those conditions. Trump threatened tariffs. COLOMBIA accepted migrants under different conditions.
Referring to handcuffing and binding the feet of non-violent offenders, not giving any water and not letting people use the bathroom for 5+ hour flights on military aircraft.
Again I repeat: Please tell me how anyone is better off now than before Trump, when Colombia also accepted migrants.