Yesterday, it was fairly quiet again. I had actually waited until morning to change the clocks, which I did when I got up, and also managed to change the newest one, which also shows date and temperature, from Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Let’s just say that was not intuitive. I know, it’s less scientific, but it’s more meaningful to me, being what I grew up with. And, because the degrees are closer together, it feels more accurate to me, although less scientifically useful.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Liz Cheney Brands Tucker Carlson ‘Un-American’ In Fox News Interview
Quote – “You know, it’s the same kind of thing that you hear from people who say that 9/11 was an inside job,” the Republican lawmaker said. “It’s un-American to be spreading those kinds of lies and they are lies. And we have an obligation that goes beyond partisanship, an obligation that we share — Democrats and Republicans together — to make sure that we understand every single piece of the facts about what happened that day and to make sure the people who did are held accountable.” Click through for a video and a little more text. I realize Cheney msy have a personal interest in 9/11 not being a false flag – because if it were, her dad was involved. But she still gets some points for recognizing and avoiding hypocrisy.
AP News – Culture war fight finds mixed success in school board races
Quote – But across the country, culture and identity fights were less decisive. The political tracking website Ballotpedia identified 96 school districts in more than a dozen states where race education and masking were part of the debate. It found that at least one anti-critical race theory or anti-mask candidate prevailed in 35 of the 86 districts in which it has determined winners, or 40%. “Where they won, they won in really high numbers,” said Doug Kronaizl, a staff writer for Ballotpedia, noting that candidates who won on the issue tended to be concentrated in the same districts. “But overall nationwide they didn’t win that much.” Click through for specificities. This is hish on my worries list. County, municipal, and school board elections here are “non-partisan,” as I suspect they are in most states. That sounds good, but in practice it means you have no idea for whom you are voting, and no way to find out how they think. And school boards, cities, and counties are where cndidates for state and federal office come from.
GWN (Good Word News) – The longest partial lunar eclipse of the century is coming: date, how to look
Quote – According to NASA, a three-hour, 28-minute partial lunar eclipse will take place on November 18 and 19 and people around the world will only have to walk outside to get a glimpse. Night watchers on the U.S. east coast will be able to watch the event from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. ET, according to NASA. Those on the West Coast can watch the sky between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. PT. Click through for a bit of background. Midnight till 2 is actually not too bad a time for me, so I may actually be able to see this one. And it shouldn’t require sunglasses.
In case you missed it (but how could you?) – this was not a particularly good week for us Democrats, with Glenn Youngkin winning the governorship of Virginia.
BUT you might have missed this little tidbit:
ICYMI: Glenn Youngkin’s UNDERAGE Son Tried to Illegally Vote – NOT Just ONCE, But TWICE – in This Week’s Virginia Election
So it's interesting. Youngkin's underage son not only tried to vote illegally. He also tried to vote at a precinct where his family doesn't live. After being turned away once he returned to the same precinct where his family doesn't live and again demanded to vote.
About 20 minutes later, the teen returned, insisting that he be allowed to vote, saying that a friend who was also 17 had been allowed to cast a ballot.
Youngkin had emphasized “election integrity” as the centerpiece of his campaign to win the GOP nomination. He announced the formation of an “Election Integrity Task Force” of citizens who would work “to ensure free and fair elections in Virginia.”
Where’s the GQP outcry about election fraud? Where’s the GQP outcry about illegal voting? And why aren’t they calling for an “audit” to find that 17 y/o friend of Thomas Youngkin who DID vote – at least according to Thomas.
They obviously have NO knowledge about irony, but have an amazing familiarity with hypocrisy.
ICYMI: Melania Scowls and Rolls Her Eyes at TFG During World Series Game
This past week TFG & Melania went to the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves World Series game in Atlanta where the camera caught Melania trading in her smile for rolling her eyes, turning her head away and scowling.
But it’s hardly the first time Melania has let her true feelings show. We all remember her famous vanishing smile during the Inauguration …
Or when she slapped his hand away while visiting Israel …
And my favorite: Who can forget her most poignant plea for help from Michelle Obama disguised as a gift from Tiffany’s:
As long as we’re enjoying mocking TFG, let’s compare how his visit with Pope Francis went compared to Pres. Biden’s visit a week ago.
ICYMIT: Trump v Pres. Biden on Meeting Pope Francis
Trump’s meeting with the Pope did not go well …
Compared to Pres. Biden meeting with Pope Francis this past week:
Pope Francis was not the only one at the Vatican who was dumbfounded when dealing with TFG. A reminder of what an honest reaction to utter incompetence gets from a totally unbiased translator back when Donnie visited the Pope:
What a difference having a caring, compassionate and competent President makes!
ICYMI: Biden Puts an End to Trump’s Weekly “INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK”
The other big story I’m sure no one missed was the ending of Trump’s FOUR-PLUS YEARS of promising “Infrastructure Week”. But let’s review a snippet of TFG’s endless promise of “Getting it done”.
BOOM!! The Senate OKs Democrats’ $3.5 trillion infrastructure reconciliation bill, setting the stage for tuition-free pre-k, a Civilian Climate Corps, expanded Medicare benefits and more. #BidenDelivers pic.twitter.com/SOfEpXznG7
Oh, and when the GQP starts whining that Biden’s Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better will cause inflation (and they will, because lies are all they have), just inform that SEVENTEEN Nobel Prize-Winning Economists disagree!
ICYMI: Nobel Prize Winners: Biden’s Build Back Better Social Safety Net Will EASE Inflation – NOT Cause It
Seventeen recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics signed a letter in support of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better package on Monday. They refuted arguments made by Republicans and moderate Democrats that the massive “human infrastructure” bill—which would provide funding to expand education, health care, child care, and climate efforts—is far too expensive.
The economists also came out in support of a proposed $2.9 trillion increase in taxes to pay for the program. The new rates, which would mostly impact the wealthiest Americans and large, multinational corporations, would represent the largest tax increase in decades.
The signees, who are all currently employed as professors at the nation’s top universities, wrote: “Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”
That should bring you up to speed on those fun stories that might have slipped right passed you this past week.
Glenn Kirschner – House Select Committee Issues 20 New Subpoenas BUT We’re on Day 15 of Bannon Indictment Watch (Of course those would be over and above the over 150 people they have already heard from, either in testimony or depositions)
Meidas Touch – Joe Biden HUMILIATES heckler: “I’m beginning to see why your wife left you”
RepresentUs – Sen. Warnock Calls Out Senate Obstructionists
MSNBC – ‘One Of The Dirtiest Tricks’ Of The 2020 Election Exposed In FBI Raid
Really American – Republicans Distort History To Rile Up Racial Animus
John Fugelsang – Breaking Bannon (Caffeinated)
Beau – Let’s talk about what Republicans believe makes America great….
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I know everyone is wondering whether – not when – the current coronavirus, including the Delta variant, will ever go away. Well, the answer to that is no, it won’t. It wll likely become easier to deal with, but it’s unlikely to go away. The most likely outcome is that it will become like seasonal flu in that it will continue to change a little and new vaccines will be needed every year. And, as now happens with the flu, every year people will die from it – although not in the kind of numbers we are currently looking at.
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Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic
Early on in the pandemic, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) might just go away, since historically some pandemic viruses have simply disappeared.
For instance, SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the first SARS pandemic in 2003, spread to 29 countries and regions, infecting more than 8,000 people from November 2002 to July 2003. But thanks to quick and effective public health interventions, SARS-CoV hasn’t been observed in humans in almost 20 years and is now considered extinct.
On the other hand, pandemic viruses may also gradually settle into a relatively stable rate of occurrence, maintaining a constant pool of infected hosts capable of spreading the virus to others. These viruses are said to be “endemic.”
Examples of endemic viruses in the United States include those that cause the common cold and the seasonal flu that appear year after year. Much like these, the virus that causes COVID-19 likely won’t die out, and most experts now expect it to become endemic.
So why did the first SARS virus from 2003 (SARS-CoV) go extinct while this one (SARS-CoV-2) may become endemic?
The ultimate fate of a virus depends on how well it maintains its transmission. Generally speaking, viruses that are highly contagious, meaning that they spread really well from one person to the next, may never die out on their own because they are so good at finding new people to infect.
When a virus first enters a population with no immunity, its contagiousness is defined by scientists using a simple mathematical term, called R0, which is pronounced “R-naught.” This is also referred to as the reproduction number. The reproduction number of a virus represents how many people, on average, are infected by each infected person. For example, the first SARS-CoV had an R0 of about 2, meaning that each infected person passes the virus to two people on average. For the delta variant strain of SARS-CoV-2, the R0 is between 6 and 7.
The goal for public health authorities is to slow the rate by which viruses spread. Universal masking, social distancing, contact tracing and quarantines are all effective tools to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Since SARS-CoV was poorly transmissible, it just took a little bit of public health intervention to drive the virus to extinction. Given the highly transmissible nature of the delta variant, the challenge for eliminating the virus will be much greater, meaning that the virus is more likely to become endemic.
In August 2020, about 500,000 motorcyclists rode the streets of Sturgis, South Dakota, at the city’s annual motorcycle rally. Masks were encouraged but not required. COVID-19 cases throughout the state increased. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images
Is COVID-19 ever going away?
It’s clear that SARS-CoV-2 is very successful at finding new people to infect, and that people can get infected after vaccination. For these reasons, the transmission of this virus is not expected to end. It’s important that we consider why SARS-CoV-2 moves so easily from one person to the next, and how human behavior plays into that virus transmission.
SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus that is spread through the air and is efficiently transmitted when people congregate. Critical public health interventions, like mask use and social distancing, have been key in slowing the spread of disease. However, any lapse in these public health measures can have dire consequences. For instance, a 2020 motorcycle rally brought together nearly 500,000 people in Sturgis, South Dakota, during the early phases of the pandemic. Most of the attendees were unmasked and not practicing social distancing. That event was directly responsible for an increase in COVID-19 cases in the state of South Dakota and nationwide. This shows how easily the virus can spread when people let their guard down.
The virus that causes COVID-19 is often associated with superspreading events, in which many people are infected all at once, typically by a single infected individual. In fact, our own work has shown that just 2% of the people infected with COVID-19 carry 90% of the virus that is circulating in a community. These important “supercarriers” have a disproportionately large impact on infecting others, and if they aren’t tracked down before they spread the virus to the next person, they will continue to sustain the epidemic. We currently don’t have a nationwide screening program geared toward identifying these individuals.
Finally, asymptomatically infected people account for roughly half of all infections of COVID-19. This, when coupled with a broad range of time in which people can be infectious – two days before and 10 days after symptoms appear – affords many opportunities for virus transmission, since people who don’t know they are sick generally take few measures to isolate from others.
The contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2 and our highly interconnected society constitute a perfect storm that will likely contribute to sustained virus spread.
Given the considerations discussed above and what we know about COVID-19 so far, many scientists believe that the virus that causes COVID-19 will likely settle into endemic patterns of transmission. But our inability to eradicate the virus does not mean that all hope is lost.
Our post-pandemic future will heavily depend on how the virus evolves over the coming years. SARS-CoV-2 is a completely new human virus that is still adapting to its new host. Over time, we may see the virus become less pathogenic, similar to the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold, which represent little more than a seasonal nuisance.
Global vaccination programs will have the greatest impact on curbing new cases of the disease. However, the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine campaign so far has touched only a small percentage of people on the planet. In addition, breakthrough infections in vaccinated people still occur because no vaccine is 100% effective. This means that booster shots will likely be needed to maximize vaccine-induced protection against infection.
With global virus surveillance and the speed at which safe and effective vaccines have been developed, we are well poised to tackle the ever-evolving target that is SARS-CoV-2. Influenza is endemic and evolves quickly, but seasonal vaccination enables life to go on as normal. We can expect the same for SARS-CoV-2 – eventually.
How will we know if and when SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic?
Four seasonal coronaviruses circulate in humans endemically already. They tend to recur annually, usually during the winter months, and affect children more than adults. The virus that causes COVID-19 has not yet settled down into these predictable patterns and instead is flaring up unpredictably around the globe in ways that are sometimes difficult to predict.
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Once rates of SARS-CoV-2 stabilize, we can call it endemic. But this transition may look different based on where you are in the world. For instance, countries with high vaccine coverage and plentiful boosters may soon settle into predictable spikes of COVID-19 during the winter months when the environmental conditions are more favorable to virus transmission. In contrast, unpredictable epidemics may persist in regions with lower vaccination rates.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, could this virus have been prevented from becoming endemic? The authors are careful not to address that or even allude to it. But from what they do say about the handling of the 2002-2003 outbreak, my guess is yes, it could have. Our president at that time was George W Bush. I seriously doubt he knows or knew more than Trump** about science ot public health or viruses. But what he did know was how to shut up and let his people do their jobs, and to back them up, and to not make everything about himself. I am inclined to believe that, if we had had President H. Clinton in 2020, the handling of the pandemic would have been such that the virus could have been made extinct. Of course, that is not provable – hypotheticals seldom are.
Yesterday the radio opera was Carmen – an opera set in Spain, by a French composer. The Carmen was from Georgia (not ours, the one in Asia.) The Don Jose was from Poland, and the Escamillo from Germany. The performance was done in Vienna, Austria, and the radio station broadcasting it is in Chicago. I suspect Republican heads would explode.
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Short Takes –
PoliticusUSA – Adam Schiff Confirms That Trump’s Staff Are Flipping On Him
Quote – When MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell asked if any of the nearly 150 interviews conducted by the 1/6 Committee contained Trump officials, Rep. Schiff answered: They do include people from the former administration. They include people in the private sector. They include people are experts in some of the — for example, the social media issues that we’re investigating. So they run the gamut. Click through for a little more. Of course he can’t name names at this point.
For years we have faced a terrible health care crisis. The cost of health care has skyrocketed, and families have gone bankrupt due to medical bills. One statistic I encountered (though I cannot vouch for its veracity) is 62% of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and of those, ¾ had medical insurance. Hospitals have become for-profit ventures, and investigations have turned up gross overcharging time and again. Horror stories about our horribly broken health care system abound. One-third of Go Fund Me campaigns are to help families pay mounting expenses. Just recently, a woman in Georgia was charged $700 just for sitting in an ER even though no doctor ever examined her.
We pay insurance companies to cover our medical bills, but they are notorious for jerking around their customers. They have a long, long list of “pre-existing conditions” that they use to blow off nearly anybody requesting that a bill be covered, and use various weasel words to avoid covering various items. People have sat on hold for hours and hours without hearing a live human voice. Forget a lawsuit – each company has a large army of lawyers who can drag out the case until the one suing runs out of money. A class-action lawsuit, in which a bunch of little fish gang up on the big fish? Sorry, now allowed these days.
Meanwhile, in numerous other countries, people have access to affordable health care. Nobody goes bankrupt, nor are taxes bleeding everybody white. Medicines and prescriptions are inexpensive, if not free. Activists are hollering for a similar system here, marching and protesting, signing petitions and post cards, contacting their representatives by phone and e-mail and text and twitter. Up against this crusade is the powerful medical insurance lobby, as well as conservative pundits ready with propaganda about extreme expense or asking if this means that every wino gets a free liver transplant. Those who howl about Medicare for All being costly are strangely silent about how much we squander on “defense” and tax breaks for big corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
People in the U.S. who have the means and opportunity regularly travel to Mexico or Canada for the medications they need. Many patients have resorted to “medical tourism,” traveling to distant lands to receive treatment they can’t get here due to the great expense or unavailability. The rich, of course, always have this option; those of modest means may have to scrimp and save for months, maybe years.
Practitioners of alternative medicine appeal to the desperate, promising miracles that they cannot deliver. When traditional Western medicine sucks patients dry and cannot save everyone, naturally shady practices become attractive. They can always send a paid-off shill to claim that such-and-such cured them of cancer, ALS, etc., and those who have lost their patience with our messed-up system often listen.
To cure this country’s malady we need the right people in charge. And who better to run health care than doctors? Also, we need to put more emphasis on prevention. Here is a perfect example of an ounce of prevention being better than a pound of cure. Perhaps everybody gets basic care – yearly checkups, flu shots, certain screenings – for free. Other suggestions include putting public assistance programs such as Medicaid on a sliding scale, instead of having a sharp cutoff; and offering “gapcare,” low-cost coverage for those people who don’t qualify for Medicaid/Medicare but can’t afford regular health insurance or COBRA. In a certain sense, Obamacare is gapcare; but it still puts big insurance companies in charge of who gets what – if anything.
Meanwhile, we have to start by accepting responsibility for our own well-being. We have no business demanding a better health care system when we eat like elephants and exercise like sloths, when we shovel all manner of unhealthful swill into our mouths. Unfortunately, you can scream and scream and scream in American ears until you drop from asphyxiation, you can shove all sorts of posters and videos extolling a healthful lifestyle in their faces, you can hold guns to their heads, nail their eyes open, wallop their enormous arses with bullwhips – but the instant the seductive smell of greasy, trans-fat laden French fries or chocolate cake full of simple carbohydrates hits their nostrils, all the lecturing is forgotten. The only way to get some people to eat anything healthful, it seems, is to chain them to chairs and prop their mouths open. All the preaching about eating right is drowned out by the obnoxious jingles of restaurants touting vile garbage they have the temerity to call food. We sit at desks all day at work, and loll on the couch in front of the TV all evening. We seek magic-bullet solutions to our expanding waist lines, hoping that we can get drastic weight loss in a pill or just 10 minutes a day of diddling with the latest as-seen-on-TV gadget. We mewl for a royal road to radiant health and chase after every fad diet rather than making a reasonable effort to get in shape and stay in shape. It is all part of our becoming lazy, not just physically but also intellectually and ethically.
Thus, better health care is a two-way street. We can holler for a health care system that doesn’t result in hundreds of thousands of personal bankruptcies a year, but we also have to take care of our own bodies.
Glenn Kirschner – Federal Judge Chutkan Destroys Arguments by Donald Tump’s Lawyer on Executive Privilege.
Now This News – How Gang Leaders Are Helping Get New Zealanders Vaccinated. I like it. Progress doesn’t get made by being too chickens**t to take risks.
Really American – Congressmembers Say “‘Let’s Go Brandon”
Robert Reich – How Wealth Inequality Spiraled Out of Control
politicsrus -When Evil Came to America (pretty dramatic, but I won’t say the drama isn’t needed.)
Mrs. Betty Bowers – The United States of Freedom
Beau – Let’s talk about the FEC’s worst decision since their last one….
The 19th – A Duchess and a senator go to dinner
Quote – In a furious dash to ensure a universal paid leave policy — however small — makes it into the final version of a care package weaving its way through Congress, the Democratic legislators who have advocated for the policy for years are trying everything — including working with the Duchess of Sussex. Click through for how this happened. I have nor forgiven Gillibramd, but if this helps get it done, that may help. (Incidentally, SOME people are capable of rising above “I’ve got mine” and work to help others.)
Wonkette – Special Counsel John Durham Arrests Russian Pee Tape Man For TERRIBLE LIES!
Quote – We’re sorry, but does any of that rise to the level of “lied to FBI about secret negotiations with Russian government”? We are just asking, because we are unclear on what the standards are here in Wonderland. Click through for story. I don’t know what else you’d expect from a “Special Prosecutor” appointed by Bill Barr. Couldn’t (and shouldn’t) he be replaced with a real person?
The Hill – Democrats ramp up filibuster talks after voting rights setback
Quote – After months of trying to give space for bipartisan discussions on election legislation, Democrats are planning internal talks about what, if any, rules changes they’ll be able to get through on their own. Those ideas include smaller shifts on nominations or amendments. But altering the filibuster — particularly when it comes to elections bills — is getting the most attention. Click through for more – I should bloody well hope the filibuster’s abolishment is getting discussed!
Food for Thought –
Democracy for America and Robert Reich want you to sign (and share) this petition (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to.)
