China reports 6-month-high COVID cases: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-11-05/china-posts-6-month-high-covid-count-as-it-sticks-with-strategy . We are coming up on 3 years into the pandemic. China needs to effectively vaccinate its entire population and get past Zero COVID. And even with broad, current vaccinations, there is likely to be significant mortality. WSJ: More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/possible-china-covid-reopening-prompts-jittery-markets-intense-speculation-11667594470 .
Another day, more bad Twitter news: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitters-chaotic-short-notice-layoffs-rcna55661 . Reading Musk’s continual self-referral as a “free speech absolutist”, I remain absolutely appalled at his abject lack of understanding of the rights and responsibilities associated with free speech. Musk actually has lit a fire inside a crowded theater (see Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s classic opinion in Schenck v. US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater ).
WSJ: Hey, we just realized Twitter is a train wreck: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-elon-musks-quest-to-revive-twitter-is-likely-to-fail-11667620832 . Do note that based on this article’s valuation of the revenue stream, Twitter is worth about one-fourth of what Musk paid for it. And that’s before Musk destroyed the revenue stream. But they do add a reasonable criticism: Musk is applying his start-up experience to a mature company. That is a terrible mismatch. More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-twitter-has-had-massive-revenue-drop-11667573127 . Musk blames everyone else for the revenue contraction. He sounds more like Orange Julius every day. More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-rolls-out-blue-check-marks-for-paying-customers-11667681496 . And then there’s employee morale: https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-week-of-elon-musks-twitter-was-chaos-and-confusion-for-employees-11667670558 .
WSJ: Berkshire Hathaway suffers large loss from insurance underwriting: https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-swings-to-loss-stung-by-battered-market-11667654056 . Buffett has apparently not realized that property and casualty insurance underwriting is increasingly dangerous with each year of climate change.
The Great Migration II: Democrats gain power as Blacks move to the South: https://www.aol.com/hope-bringing-us-back-black-092902918.html . While the article lacks any data (!), it is certainly true that there has been a migration of well-educated whites and blacks to Georgia, and these voters are heavily Democratic.
When experts are obviously idiots: https://www.aol.com/daylight-saving-time-healthy-no-095905382.html . Let’s identify the problem and provide an analytic method for solving it. The experts say that we should avoid switching the clocks twice a year. For the moment, let’s accept that as true. In choosing between daylight and standard time, the experts say that standard is preferable because our natural clocks are coordinated to the sun and therefore standard time is the healthier choice.
Let’s assume that noon should be the time when the sun is directly overhead. That sounds like standard time in theory, but it is not. In any time zone, the sun is directly overhead at a slightly different time in each longitude. Let’s just assume for the moment that the longitude in the center of the time zone is the one where the sun is directly overhead at noon. Then people at the far eastern side of the time zone have the sun directly overhead at 11:30 am, while those on the far western side have it overhead at 12:30 pm. Is this the best we can do?
No, because people are not distributed equally throughout the time zone. The largest population center could have the sun overhead at any time between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm. Here is a map of the four main US time zones: https://daylight-savings.com/zones/usa/ . You will note that in the Eastern time zone, the population is concentrated on the east side of the time zone (the Eastern seaboard). Chicago is at the very eastern edge of the Central time zone, and the major cities in Texas are almost all in the eastern portion of the state. In the West, the major cities are near the West Coast, but that is a narrow time zone, and I would guess those cities are actually near the center of the time zone.
In summary, there is a significant eastern bias of the population in each time zone. That means that the average American has the sun overhead at something like 11:45 am. So the best fit for the “overhead at noon” objective would be standard time plus 15 minutes.
I’ll leave the detailed math to others, but the point is there are more solutions than Standard Time or Standard Time plus 1 hour (daylight savings time). And all of the experts quoted do not understand the problem, or the best fit for their objective. QED. WSJ: More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-does-daylight-saving-time-end-in-2022-what-to-know-before-the-clocks-change-11667509281 .
Astros win World Series: https://sports.yahoo.com/world-series-astros-topple-phillies-in-game-6-claim-a-legacy-sealing-championship-behind-yordan-alvarez-031822395.html . This series will be remembered as “runs in bunches”, as each team exploded for runs in just a few innings. The days of “small ball”, trying to manufacture a run by stringing together multiple singles, seem consigned to the past. WSJ: More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/houston-astros-world-series-11667704676 .
Dear readers: Friday’s newsletter did not appear in your mailboxes because there was an electrical substation fire in Portland which cut power for about 10,000 customers, including me, from just after 9 pm until 2 am this morning. Yesterday’s newsletter is now posted, and I encourage you to take a look. Thanks again for reading – Jeff Furnish