Pence just shut the gentleman from Alabama’s request for parliamentary inquiry down— KERSPLAT!

This is probably the first and last time in my life that anyone of these is going to be interesting, so what the hell. I rinsed off some blackberries and made the fancy coffee
The gentleman from Arizona says how dare you count. How dare any of us count! This is not proper! This is incorrect

well, I know someone who would beg to differ
The Senate now has two hours to go back to its chambers and debate for up to two hours.
This process is going to repeat itself in for at least two more times, as I understand it, because Republicans are trying to make it go as long as possible. But they will lose.
The gentleman dentist from Arizona had quite his moment this morning, like Mr. dentist goes to Washington
The only reason the gentleman dentist from Arizona is getting such a prolonged moment in the spotlight: Arizona is the third state alphabetically 🙄
Over in Senate, the calmer body of order, which I much prefer atm, even with Mitchell speaking. Aside from his skewed recollections of recent history, everything he’s saying is true, that they can’t overrule the voters without causing permanent damage to the republic.
McConnell says our nation deserves much better than this, and I agree. Please step down, sir, do not pass, go do not collect $200
Schumer said some boring stuff, now Ted Cruz is up so I’m going to mute my television

More from Government

Which metric is a better predictor of the severity of the fall surge in US states?

1) Margin of Democrat victory in Nov 2020 election
or
2) % infected through Sep 1, 2020

Can you guess which plot is which?


The left plot is based on the % infected through Sep 1, 2020. You can see that there is very little correlation with the % infected since Sep 1.

However, there is a *strong* correlation when using the margin of Biden's victory (right).

Infections % from
https://t.co/WcXlfxv3Ah.


This is the strongest single variable I've seen in being able to explain the severity of this most recent wave in each state.

Not past infections / existing immunity, population density, racial makeup, latitude / weather / humidity, etc.

But political lean.

One can argue that states that lean Democrat are more likely to implement restrictions/mandates.

This is valid, so we test this by using the Government Stringency Index made by @UniofOxford.

We also see a correlation, but it's weaker (R^2=0.36 vs 0.50).

https://t.co/BxBBKwW6ta


To avoid look-ahead bias/confounding variables, here is the same analysis but using 2016 margin of victory as the predictor. Similar results.

This basically says that 2016 election results is a better predictor of the severity of the fall wave than intervention levels in 2020!

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MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (
https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三 毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)