Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

“Constitutional Law: It’s a Lot Like Cornbread and Slaw”

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

The Constitutional Law Song–With Banjo, Fiddle & Ukulele– is something:

(Spotted via Ben Davis on a mailing list)

Posted in Kultcha, Law: Constitutional Law | Comments Off on “Constitutional Law: It’s a Lot Like Cornbread and Slaw”

Is There a Powerful COVID Infection Rate Predictor?

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

Interesting Twitter thread about the following question: If you plot the US state-by-state  COVID infection rates since Sept 1, 2020–i.e. the recent and now receding surge–which is a better predictor:

  1. The percent of the population infected before Sept 1, or
  2. The margin of Biden’s victory in the state?

You might expect that states which had lots of COVID before Sept. 1 would have more of it after Sept. 1 for the same reasons they were getting it earlier. Or, I suppose, you might expect the reverse: states learn from their mistakes, and if infection rates were higher earlier then more people have immunity, so there’s a negative relationship between earlier infection rates and later infection rates.

According to Youyang Gu, both of those expectations are broadly wrong:COVID before/after Sept 1 2020

Instead, the single variable with the most predictive power is how strongly states voted for Biden.
COVID Infection vs Biden Vote

As commenters in the thread note, at an R-squared of about 0.5, this is not a fully explanatory variable–there’s a lot going on, no doubt. Youyang Gu’s suggestive claim is only that as single-variable explanations go, this is the most powerful.

Posted in 2020 Election, COVID-19 | Comments Off on Is There a Powerful COVID Infection Rate Predictor?

“NYPD, FBI Involved in Murder of Malcolm X”

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

Real or Onion?

Continue reading →

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ACTUAL Video of Perseverance Landing on Mars

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

When I first saw this video I thought the Mars parts were the usual ‘artist’s conception’ because they were in color and so clear.

But, no: “during landing, multiple cameras were recording the event, and this video is a combination of these. No audio was recorded, so you’re hearing a feed from JPL mission control.”

Posted in Science/Medicine | Comments Off on ACTUAL Video of Perseverance Landing on Mars

This

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

Posted in Trump | 8 Comments

More Evidence that the State of Florida Just Isn’t Into this COVID-Control Stuff (Updated)

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Michael Froomkin

The Florida Bulldog reports,

Florida is dismissing a recent warning from federal regulators about the accuracy of a popular COVID-19 test from one of the state’s largest testing providers — and continuing to use the test in a way the FDA has advised against.

Meanwhile, the state’s most populous county, Miami-Dade, is reconsidering how it uses the test.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning last month alerting the public to “the risk of false results, particularly false negative results,” with the test made by an enormous San Dimas, CA-based testing start-up, Curative, noting that false negatives can mean people unknowingly spreading the virus to others. The risk of false negatives is higher, the FDA noted, when the test isn’t used correctly.

Lots more at Florida defies FDA warning on controversial COVID test with off-label use, but Miami-Dade reconsiders.

Update: a friend writes to suggest the Curative test is really OK and doesn’t deserve the bastinado.

Posted in COVID-19 | 1 Comment