STILL N OF PIKE

Been watching this period Hunter mountain

Throw in Pedro on the Hill and man....

Pound for pound he had probably the most powerful swing in the league . Manny was not a very big dude . He hit balls 475 feet . That one in the video was a straight BOMB. Crushed to all fields.

Greatest show on Turf w Isaac Bruce . I really liked the Kurt Warner story Manny was my Favorite hitter , him and Clutch Ortiz back to back was something special Steroid Era: Barry Bonds was one of a hundred plus hitters juiced and he was head and shoulders above everyone else at age 38

Sports ...Anyone most underrated NBA players Stockton and Rodman come to mind Favorite NFL WR’s Moss - beat speed and feet ever

In other news ...stocks finished strong and the SP continued a nice winning streak . It’s about 1/4 point from the upper rail of a rising trend line and there is Much awaited inflation data out early next week as well as bond auctions for 7& 10 year government debt Which should be nice to test appetite for that duration debt for first time in a couple weeks . Believe it or not the market has respected this SP rising channel For several months , which means SP upside is likely limited For a couple weeks. (As index is 1/2% from that overhead resistance ) around 4150 The stocks with no earnings and future growth fantasy’s still are in the toilet but their market cap % was not enough to way down the SP and all indexes have fought back above their 50 day moving averages

This is as predictable as a failed OES thread by James

Some Folks seem to struggle with this a bit (understandably) . The countries who have been slow to rollout the vaccine (EU clusterfuk) are paying the price We know with high confidence that Pfizer /Moderna /Novavax protect extremely well again the UK variant and the ever cautious Fauci says that Although less total protection is provided against the Brazilian strain ,that all indications are they provide A cushion of enough protection To still be very effective . I may have skipped over J&J but I believe they are good as well . The hospitalizations over the next few months will be exceptional feedback to see how good the variant protection is for certain Seems the biggest concerns are clearly globally where the vaccine roll out has been slow . In the United States a potential concern would be a new variant that is more resistant to vaccines than the Brazilian Variant . But either way ..the MRNA tech allows these vaccines to be tweaked very quickly so in the USA things look very good . By mid to late summer if folks aren’t ready to eat in a restaurant or go on a plane I would respect their decision but it likely won’t improve much after that bc we Will have 75% of folks vaccinated by then .

I Think the bigger key will be hospitalization rates , you have to consider ..given the initial vaccine claims ..that we could have moderate case loads for years but hospitalization rates that are equal to “the flu” or anything else that we manage . It seems that we are counting on this .

you know ...I think everyone goes thru their own Personal battles ..with stress management and if life is stressful due to a multitude of factors (especially) this year ..many are just trying to keep it together .. the last thing on a list of priorities is wanting to imagine we are being subtly bent over for anything other than our “own safety”. There really is not a compelling pain/pleasure axis trade off to go down that path wondering... when most people are doing the best they can to keep their job , their relationship , their kids on a path for success , balancing some needed relaxation (Tv / drinking / edible ) downtime that it’s not “worth it “ to go wonder if on top of all that , if they are being screwed by a entity to big for them to fight . But this does create less resistance to any corporation / entity /etc focused on growing their wealth and influence thru spinning things as “trust me , I’m hear to help ...in fact I have some great ideas as to what will be best “

It is a more complex argument . But my point is the public will generally do what they are told or believe what they are told is justified with few limits as long as repeated Enough by experts And there is not a big platform for opposition. Sovereign government can very easily generate preferred public opinion if desired . In democracy it’s thru propaganda , in China / Russia its thru force . The milligram experiment was eye opening as well .

Ever since a TV and a radio convinced the public it was “ok” to set on fire and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children in Japan (who had zero part in Pearl Harbor) , this was nothing . I don’t see that being topped .

Timely article Here is a short article ( Q&A with answers by A.I ) on investment advice https://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-has-advanced-so-much-it-wrote-this-article-11617639437?link=sfmw_fb&fbclid=IwAR3yLBhecLNrfw3G6AnTQ7mK-CjdItaO16mmowi039Pw89kHAYbjLtT2mO4 Why can’t they give weather forecasts better as well .

I believe everyone understands there has been lots of suffering from the virus and from the response to the virus , unless of course they have done just fine and don’t really weigh others misfortune from the response . The Issue with social ramifications were that they were not born out equally or even close . Also the social ramifications were not plastered on the evening news 24/7 , so most people didn’t really have much information or feeling as to this suffering . There was a fairly generous monetary response via PPP / unemployment/ child tax credits , stimulus checks . It is going to be very difficult to take away that punch bowl, as that and reopening are the only reasons are economy is “booming” this year . Bottom line was That a response was needed to a extremely contagious virus , desired behavior was determined , and the methods to induce that behavior was unloaded via a full court press to create a public perception or opinion that would support that behavior deemed safest . There seemed to be Less resistance to the experts response in the beginning when there were much more unknowns. There was never an option To do nothing or something without great suffering. Different responses were going to create different groups who took brunt of suffering. The biggest fumble I see is the way that nursing homes were handled after the first wave . Thank goodness effective vaccines were found quickly as society was devolving mentally .

Folks should read Elon’s thoughts on this Odds are he is “Smahtah” than any one on this board AND more in the know as far as this goes and what applications this has potential for . The technology is not complete but it’s moving along , whether we see the Wide spread breakthroughs where machine intelligence (Which is far superior in learning speed and comprehension potential to humans ) being tapped into /phased with these implants doesn’t seem to be a done deal . One of the most advanced A.I companies is Deep mind which was acquired by Google years ago . This will be used to increase profits given the world we live in . People seem to like to classify things as “good” (legitimite Concerns are labeled extreme To maintain this Positive outlook or “bad” as maybe they dislike the idea of change and it seems More convenient and natural to just form binary opinions as it’s easier to Convey and support them . If you choose not to look into both (A whole spectrum of outcomes ,uses) and thus Not think critically how do you form a intelligent opinion? It’s a very dynamic change as obviously there would be potentially very positive medical breakthroughs but that is not where the buck stops with this technology , not by a long shot .

https://mobile.twitter.com/neuralink/status/1380303902139031553 good ole Neurolink with its implantable chip . Using “telepathy “ to play a video game , hands free . Do we want peoples thoughts manifesting in the physical world so easily ...

I would guess the shootings are sort of a manifestation of many things. Including a rise in mental health problems. I just can't imagine why someone would kill a innocent child. Sad indeed.

What a sick story this morning of Former NFl player Phillip Adams. Executing two children (among the 5 dead /including himself) > I would never comprehend the mental anguish a man goes thru that decided to put a bullet in his own brain. in addition he killed his Dr. and Dr.'s Wife .... but to execute two children is ...

Work from Home is about cutting costs for businesses ,period . Maybe sold as safety or blah blah but ya it’s money And less costs In the not so distant future ..when the costs come down with robotics (And they will ) many jobs will be replaced , especially on the factory floors. There are other sectors to , but the stimulus checks will have more and more political capital to transition into sort of a UBI hybrid . There are so many fascinating and downright scary directions technology is going rapidly with regarding to A.I. A.I is progressing at such a level that by the time people get around to regulating it , it will be too late due to the exponential rate of A.I- machine learning compared to the rate of regulating (which is usually the result of unwanted deaths ) It sounds wild and very fringy I realize but that particular technology stands to become one of the most Dangerous advances . There will be the incentive (almost from inception) to weaponize A.I . The rate at which this particular technology improves itself seems to be the biggest issue that once the cats out of the bag it’s almost beyond control . Not to be outdone , there is a very well funded drive to sort of create a human / machine Learning interface that actually sort of “upgrades” you . There is touted to be amazing healing and medical breakthroughs with this sort of technology using a implanted chip w tiny wires placed directly and carefully on the surface of the brain . Fully capable of reversing ailments from cognitive decline to spinal cord injuries to literally conjoining your sort of reality /intelligence abilities into the machine exponential Learning curve and tapping into that in a way that seems fluid and part of you . It’s a very odd space with some folks who seem very fascinated with pushing the envelope and seemingly throwing caution to the wind . These advances are not extremely well detailed thou you can find executives for certain companies willing to brag about the advances in interviews thou it’s not quite broadcast yet on 60 minutes . This includes more than Elon Musk and Neuralink . If you take a careful look at how fast we have advanced in the last 30 years and look at what the cutting edge is with A.I, autonomous learning , genomics you should not be surprised if 20 years from now the world really doesn’t closely resemble the one we are living in And that is if things go “well” once this cat is out of the bag .

The Red Sox are doing about as well as I anticipated 60-65 win team . Really bad .

Good points

Vax rates are impressive Things look to be really looking up at least domestically . Internationally , not so much given the lack of vaccines supplies locked up and disseminated in various poor and un..connected countries. The increase in breakthru cases around the country shouldn’t be too surprising given that the phase 3 trials given by every pharmaceutical company where both arms of the study were basically doing a quarantine but that should decline when the 16-40 year old spreaders are vaxxed. However the one study With folks actually interacting frequently/ intensely with the population was really BIG, thou more time and responses need to be looked at . It showed 90% Efficacy In populations that live with daily (interactions with people (first responders ) ..You know... what real life was Like . It also protected at a higher level against death and hospitalization ..which after all is the bottom line and if these results can be repeated Over a longer time frame and with a higher sample size than Covid will be potentially on the same level or less than the Flu- if you compare numbers - but that will take consistency in that data with those levels of interactions If someone who crunches numbers can do a comparison based on that 90% Covid efficacy (real world conditions )post vaccination Covid threats may fall in line with Other threats we live with as well as a understanding that high levels of obesity and diabetes as well as being stuck in nursing home unvaccinated tremendously have raise your chances of a unfortunate Covid outcome .

Looks like Dogecoin is going to the moon. Quite literally lol

Ya, that is the truly funny thing. The process of determining how the experts have done is a farce. It's done in a vacuum. So it's incomplete to be polite and very ignorant. People like to make decisions than look for reasons to support what they did or believe. They don't want the mental anguish of questioning themselves. The media has insured People form opinions while only seeing one side of a story (deaths that maybe possibly were saved from Covid lock downs) there is no formal number to look up because many epidemiologists know this is NOT how you would operate by quarantining 100% of a population when 1% is sick, there is no real data to compare. Masks, hand washing , etc can all slow the spread of something very contagious and lower the trajectory. Its a media induced fear cycle combined with political folks and health experts realizing they can do anything in the name of safety bc nobody is going to blame them for unemployment deaths, obesity inducted deaths, stress induced deaths, depression deaths. Nope ...so the path to (over)-react for safety was paved and a easy one to choose if you are a health official or politician. People have been getting spoon fed facts by "select" experts who ....have convinced the public to say if they save 10,000 covid lives (that wouldn't not have other wise been saved ) from lockdowns that they did a good job and it was worth it. There has been a black out on the costs in mental health, depression , anxiety and lives lost form non elective surgeries not getting done, Deaths from increased suicide . Forced bankruptcy's of businesses in the hundreds of thousands (read that again FORCED bankruptcies of successful) business. It was calculated that for every 1% rise in unemployment there are 40,000 additional deaths. People have a very ignorant view of determining if the experts are right . The experts are very intelligent.and usually politically savvy (but operate in a vaccuum) . What i mean by operate in a vacuum is they have ZERO job accountability for the side effects'/deaths from unmeployment rate, ,depression increase, suicide increases, drug OD increases, general depression among isolated elderly and youth. It's amazing how all those things which have been magnified by lock downs are swept under the rug when weighing how the experts did. The Experts let a second and third wave of Deaths hit the nursing homes after it was apparent that was where 40% of ALL the covid deaths were occuring. In that small 1.5% of the population ...40% of Covid deaths occurred. How did the health experts do....saving people in nursing homes after it was apparent and the hysteria of the first wave was complete and we had actual data (not feelings) to go on. They failed Miserable there. I will be getting a shot shortly and this was a very contagious virus and I’m not saying making decisions to minimize the total impact it would have were anything but difficult.

96" is pitiful for Wildcat. What a total lack of synoptic events there.