Consider the Greenland Shark LRB
Vultures are circling our fragile economies – we must not let them feast Ann Pettifor, Open Democracy
Wall Street, bribery and an opioid epidemic: the inside story of a disgraced drugmaker FT
We Will Be Living With the Coronavirus Pandemic Well Into 2021 Bloomberg
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center cancel fall schedules because of coronavirus New York Post. I don’t know what letter-form a dead cat makes when it bounces, but it’s not a “V.”
Fauci says ‘football may not happen this year’ due to coronavirus The Hill. Ditto.
#COVID19
The science:
Airborne SARS-CoV-2 is Rapidly Inactivated by Simulated Sunlight Journal of Infectious Diseases. From the abstract: “These results suggest that the potential for aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 may be dependent on environmental conditions, particularly sunlight…. . Decay rates in simulated saliva, under simulated sunlight levels representative of late winter/early fall and summer were 0.121±0.017 min-1 (90% loss: 19 minutes) and 0.379±0.072 min-1 (90% loss: 6 minutes), respectively.”
European study links genes, blood type with risk of severe coronavirus infection CNN (original).
Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure NEJM
* * * Vaccines:
Prevalence of IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan – implications for the ability to produce long-lasting protective antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (preprint) merRxiv (via). From the abstract: “Prevalence of IgM antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 was 31.4% in COVID-19 patients, 1.5% in healthcare providers, 1.3% in general workers, and 0.2% in other patients…. Very few healthcare providers had IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, though a significant proportion of them had been infected with the virus. After SARS-CoV-2 infection, people are unlikely to produce long-lasting protective antibodies against this virus.” I would want to know about the IgM/IgG test, though.
Race for virus vaccine could leave some countries behind AP
* * * Spread:
Considerations for Public Beaches CDC. “Highest risk: Staff and beach visitors get closer — less than 6 feet away from people who live in a different area** where the spread of the virus might be greater. Staff and beach visitors freely share their food, equipment, toys, or supplies with others, even people they don’t know.” Seems to accept the “stay in your bubble” practice.
Bjorn’s Corner: Do I get COVID in airline cabins? Part 7. Effects of prevention. Leeham News & Analysis
* * * Testing and tracing:
Coronavirus Antibody Tests Have a Mathematical Pitfall Scientific American
* * * Masks:
Face Masks Considerably Reduce COVID-19 Cases in Germany: A Synthetic Control Method Approach (PDF) Institute of Labor Economics. From the abstract: “Our identification approach exploits regional variation in the point in time when face masks became compulsory. Depending on the region we analyse, we find that face masks reduced the cumulative number of registered Covid-19 cases between 2.3% and 13% over a period of 10 days after they became compulsory. Assessing the credibility of the various estimates, we conclude that face masks reduce the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 40%.” Natural experiments.
We Need Better Masks Harvard Business Review. So make a market with a universal masking requirement.
Californians must wear masks outside home under new state order San Francisco Chronicle
Here are Arizona cities’ responses to a possible mandatory face mask policy KTAR
* * * Social determinants of health:
The Rural Counties with Highest Rate of New Infections Daily Yonder
* * * Political response:
Why Acting Fast Is the Key to Beating a Second Wave of Covid-19 Bloomberg
Governments and Banks Provide Cruise Lines with Financial Lifeline The Maritime Executive
* * * Reopening:
Challenges of “Return to Work” in an Ongoing Pandemic (PDF) NEJM
China?
US-China talks ‘constructive’, but both sides stick to guns over key disputes such as national security law for Hong Kong South China Morning Post
US-China row moves underwater in cable tangle BBC
The new Cold War with China Responsible Statecraft
China’s public health reforms may not prevent next virus: experts Reuters
Wuhan Diary Ai Xiaming, New Left Review
We can’t let China apologists stop us from supporting Black Lives Matter Lausan
India
India China border news: Another round of Major General-level talks between India and China today after 10 Indian soldiers released Times of India
Satellite images suggest Chinese activity at India’s Himalayan border before clash Reuters
Syraqistan
The Imperious Caesar Act Will Crush The Syrian People The American Conservative. The “Caesar Act” seems a little too on-the-nose…
UK/EU
US Pulls Out of Talks to Tax Tech Giants in a Blow to Europe’s Plans Finanz (Furzy Mouse).
Politics: serial incompetence EU Referendum. UK contact tracing app debacle.
Cynicism and Warmongering Craig Murray. BBC Skripal documentary, “based on a true story.”
Dysfunctional ‘toxic culture’ led to Labour defeat, major report finds Guardian. Oddly, or not, no mention either of party insiders sabotaging the Corbyn campaign, or of the extensive, intelligence community-led smear of Corbyn as an anti-Semite, in which the Guardian gleefully partipated. Did they hire some Democratic strategists to consult on the report?
Brexit
Northern Irish firms to be reimbursed for tariffs if Brexit talks fail, Gove says Guardian. I keep thinking Boris got Brexit “done.” He hasn’t.
The Myth of America’s Green Growth Foreign Policy (dk).
Trump Transition
3 in 4 Voters Back Keeping or Expanding Weekly Jobless Benefit Morning Consult
Roberts Wanted Minimal Competence, but Trump Couldn’t Deliver The Atlantic
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Exclusive: Massive spying on users of Google’s Chrome shows new security weakness Reuters
Police State Watch
The Secret Society Among Lawmen Los Angeles Times (dk). From 1999, still germane. I had no idea LA Confidential was a documentary. And a rather mild one, at that.
Abolition will not be randomized Monthly Review
Air Force investigates military planes that monitored Minneapolis, D.C. protests Star Tribune
Military COIN experts claim they can stop protests in just 17 years Duffel Blog
Black Injustice Tipping Point
Neoliberal desegregation Interfluidity
Quaker Oats Replaces Historically Racist Aunt Jemima Mascot With Black Female Lawyer Who Enjoys Pancakes Sometimes The Onion. (Nancy Green, the original “Aunt Jemima,” is an interesting historical figure. But they don’t call them “brands” for nothing….
Juneteenth
Juneteenth: Our Other Independence Day Smithsonian
Original ‘Juneteenth’ order found in the National Archives WaPo. There it is:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free,’ ” the order reads. “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”
How a Texan showed L.A. the way to celebrate Juneteenth Los Angeles Times
How Brands Can Celebrate Juneteenth on Social Media Later. Woke insurance.
Guillotine Watch
Now, about the homeless:
Outdoor yoga in a dome pop-up coming to Toronto https://t.co/zamXQmw1mJ pic.twitter.com/nkncLfpmmJ
— CP24 (@CP24) June 18, 2020
A good time to live on the ocean? ‘Seasteaders’ double down during pandemic NBC (Furzy Mouse).
Class Warfare
Deaths of Despair (podcast) Open Source with Christopher Lydon. Case and Deaton interviewed.
How the Federal Reserve came to focus on racial justice FT
Liquidating The Labor Force The American Conservative. The owl of Minerva takes wing only at dusk.
Essential Workers Are the New “Magical Negro” Electric Lit (ChiGal).
Martin Wolf: what trade wars tell us FT
* * * Caribbean Workers and Capitalist Geography: An interview with Marion Werner Black Agenda Report
724 workers, including pregnant women, dismissed at Cambodia garment factory IndustriAll Global Union. Sign: “I made your clothes. You have to protect me.”
* * * US employers step up anti-unionization efforts as pandemic spurs activism Guardian
Kentucky Federal Contract Workers Vote Overwhelmingly for UE in Largest Union Election of COVID-19 Era United Electrial Workers
Report a Strike to Track Payday Report. Enter data to appear on Payday Report’s strike map.
Tell Us Now: The Dumbest Things About Smartphones Cracked. For me, iOS autocorrect consistently replaces “the” with “Atheneum.” There’s posh, and then there’s too posh.
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Thanks for delivering my daily dose of bad news Lambert. Appreciate you adding to my cynicism and depression :)
There seem to be two of us now. How shall we differentiate ourselves?
One of you can be Robert E Lee and the other can be Lee Harvey Oswald. Sound good?
I suggest “Lee the latter” for the OP.
“How shall we differentiate ourselves?”
Style, my dear, style!
> Thanks for delivering my daily dose of bad news Lambert
I try to faithfully reflect the news flow and I think we’re going through an unusually rough patch.
Though I think “science is popping” on the virus front (good news) and I’m pleased that the defeated Slave Power’s statuary is being pulled down (good news). The difficulty is that although these mountains are laboring, we really do not know what they will bring forth.
Also, temperamentally I’m a meliorist. But I’m not an optimist.
Re: “Dysfunctional ‘toxic culture’ led to Labour defeat, major report finds Guardian. Oddly, or not, no mention either of party insiders sabotaging the Corbyn campaign, or of the extensive, intelligence community-led smear of Corbyn as an anti-Semite, in which the Guardian gleefully partipated. Did they hire some Democratic strategists to consult on the report?”
Since we (meaning my betters) have decided to turn the Labour Party into the Democratic Party in all but name, I am sure they did have some “strategists” around. /sarc
A report that doesn’t point out WHY Corbyn had such large negatives and the inside campaign of 2017 to destroy the party, uh, that’s not going to really help, is it?
But in the honest / helpful bucket: the “disorganised national campaign” and “poor campaign on the ground” points. That was all very true. It may not have meant we would have won, but seriously, who thinks that this was a good idea: “[O]f 27 Labour-held seats lost narrowly to the Conservatives, 21 were not on an initial list of seats to be defended. The Tories won all of these by fewer than 700 votes, including Bury North and Bury South, Bolton North East, Stoke-on-Trent Central and Blyth Valley.” I’ve stated to friends that if we had actually had an excellent campaign we would have ended up with at least not a sh*tshow.
The voters in the UK are similar to voters in the US.US voters fell for the con artist Trumps pitch.The same thing happened in the UK. Trump and Johnston both made wild promises that voters believed. In one of his songs Meryl Haggard calls this Rainbow Stew. It is a tactic used in most elections. Remember Obama and Hope and Change. Until voters start to objectively look at a candidate we in both the US and UK will continue to elect bad leaders. I think the biggest factor in Boris winning was the UK voters were exhausted from Brexit. They thought Boris would quickly end their fatigue. They believed Boris would quickly reach some kind of deal with the EU . Boris like Trump tried bully the EU but it didn’t work. Then the virus complicated things. In both the UK and the US , the effects of poor leadership will have long term effects. Both countries will take decades to return to something even close to normal.
To your last point; endemic dysfunction will become the “new” normal.
Think, a constantly decreasing ‘area’ of competent civil societies as the elites react to stresses by shrinking the areas in which “society” responds to crises. Such is the ‘natural’ outcome of a successful program of “drowning government in a bathtub.”
The cynic in me notices that the best counter strategy for the ‘downtrodden masses’ to this trend is Warlordism. A strong executive to organize a normally disparite and fractured population in the efforts of physically “disrupting” the enclaves of the elites is optimal, from a results specific point of view.
I used to think that I would be lucky enough to become personally extinct before such an eventuality occurred. Now I realize that ‘events’ are moving along at a much quicker pace than anyone anticipated. I will probably live to see the breakdown, indeed, be one of it’s victims.
Interesting times.
I have just finished reading a good biography of the ancient Roman Cicero.
His history, and the times he lived in are almost too apposite for today.
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero
Yes, I think what was once “normal” is gone forever.
This is not correct. Johnson won a leadership contest that was decided by 160,000 Tory Party members. So all of 100,000 people who voted for Johnson in that contest are responsible for him being PM. This has squat to do with UK voters generally.
The letter a dead-cat bounce makes is a subscripted lower-case n.
No matter the form the dead cat bounce takes, the end point is always the lowest energy level. One would need a live cat bouncing to have any endpoint above the zero point.
I don’t think the answer is a letter. The economy most likely make a square root sign.
It’s more like an A
Fauci says ‘football may not happen this year’ due to coronavirus The Hill. Ditto.
If I had to bet, I would bet football is back.
And that secession started when the midwest, south, and mountain teams played, and the east and west coast teams were in hiatus. There was no civil war 2.0 because all the coasters were draft dodgers, and none of the good ole boys were willing to fight for New Your City* or fruit and nuts California…
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvIRh-qt9EQ
Don’t be so sanguine fresno dan. The history of both sides of the American War Between the States is replete with examples of the rapacious and heartless press ganging of young men to fill the ranks of the lines of cannon fodder with which the conflict was ‘fed.’
I remember reading, lo these many years ago, a story by one of the Southern Gothic writers about a Southern sheriffs posse searching for some “malingerers” and deserters in the back country in order to catch them and send them, in chains, on up to the front lines of the war.
From what I’ve read and heard from old vets about the end of the Draft was that the draftees in the Indochina Adventure began to ‘eliminate’ the more unpopular and ‘dangerous’ junior officers. When you cannot rely on your own troops not to kill you, the reflective elite takes counsel and switches to a “professional” standing army model. Such was something specifically feared by the American political founders. In short, standing “professional” armies become breeding grounds for plots and malign ‘combinations’ of various and sundry sorts.
Interesting times.
The Confederate Home Guard were needed after the first wave of volunteers didn’t want to re-enlist to fight in The Rich Man’s War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Home_Guard
The governor of Georgia made himself quite popular by handing out law enforcement and Georgia militia commissions to nearly half of the Georgia males otherwise subject to conscription into the actual Confederate armies. The Georgia militia proved comically inept in offering actual resistance to Sherman, but that wasn’t its purpose. Its purpose was to make sure you wouldn’t find yourself involved in anything like Vicksburg or the Wilderness. Also to keep you available to work the farm.
Well, in keeping with the trend, Georgia tried to conscript most of its railroad workers too until it was pointed out that no workers equals no working railroad. I think a lot of MBAs still use the CSA as a logistical model to emulate.
ambrit
June 19, 2020 at 11:20 am
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Tony Fauci has nothing to do with NFL Football. They are planning a very safe and controlled opening. However, if they don’t stand for our National Anthem and our Great American Flag, I won’t be watching!!!
====================================
Old chum, I’m the least sanguineous (sanguineous is a perfectly cromulent word) person there is, and not only due to my iron poor blood…
Could the great American experiment collapse due to a dispute over which towns host NFL games?
You betcha!
> Could the great American experiment collapse due to a dispute over which towns host NFL games?
Great premise for a Vonnegut short story.
Where is Kurt when you need him?
According to Niven and Pournelle, in “Inferno,” he inhabits a truly monumental crypt down in the sixth circle of H— complete with a neon sign that says “SO IT GOES.”
(He was still alive when they wrote that.)
Where is Hunter Thompson when we need him?
Maybe, maybe not fresno dan. The NFL used to have revenue “sharing” processes to keep the more “poverty stricken” franchises afloat. Those “heartless capitalists” were way ahead of us lowly ‘Progressives’ and our UBIs and GAIs.
Although Vietnam was a civil war, we were just sponsors of the losing side. Draftees didn’t want to be there and there was a lot of resentment and contempt for officers, but eliminating them was pretty much idle talk. Most of us who drew a moral line refused to go and paid the price. I felt it was my patriotic duty to resist the war here, not wait until I got to Naim to realize my mistake.
Years later I worked with vets of that war at a time when the image of that military over extension was being rehabilitated. So here were the same infantry guys, who hated their commanders being proud of their elimination of Vietnamise as their patriotic duty. They were the ones waving the flag and buying up all the ammo at Walmart because Clinton was going to confiscate their guns.
We had a pretty good friend who did his ‘tour’ in Leavenworth. He wouldn’t even go as a corpsman. “You still have to carry a gun and follow orders to shoot” was his reasoning. He credits serious meditation with getting him through what he described as a truly horrifying experience. At the time, he said that the COs were basically treated as traitors by the guards.
We also knew a man who ended up a helicopter pilot and flew ‘escort’ several times for Air America cargo planes up into the Golden Triangle. He said that the most dangerous flights he made were as escort for C-130 gunships. Early in the conflict, the Gatling cannons would vent their spent brass out of the other side of the aircraft. Woe betide any helicopter that blundered into that stream of descending brass. Later, the gunships had to keep their spent brass, which sloshed around during landing and almost put paid to many C-130s. A sudden shift of weight to the tail as the brass poured down there made the plane tail heavy right at the most dangerous part of flying, the landing.
That ex-pilot later became a copper, and a very good one.
“India China border news: Another round of Major General-level talks between India and China today after 10 Indian soldiers released”
Story is noteworthy for two things. First, India has denied that the Chinese captured any of their soldiers so the return of those ten officers & men was a bit of a flub. The second I believe to be more important. It looks like Russia is acting as a go between for the talks between China and India. They will be having a virtual meeting on the 23rd. Point is that in the past that it would be the US that would typically go in as a negotiator. But who would expect Trump, or even worse Pompeo to act as a disinterested party nowadays? Yes, Russia has good relations with both China and India but their record over the past decade or two has given a solid reputation as negotiators. Even the Jihadists in Syria give them respect on this.
As Lavrov and Putin have said, “Americans are not agreement-capable.” Not only are we incapable of sticking to our own commitments, but we aren’t honest go-betweens in the negotiations among other states.
On the contrary, ex-PFC Chuck, the white House has an ‘GREAT’ negotiator on staff, with now more than 3 years of experience as an honnnessst go-between re Israel versus Palestinians./s
At least relatively speaking.
Yeah, but even Einstein said, towards the end of his life, that there was something amiss with ‘relativity.’
Jared?
Veterans are delighted by an adorable story of Jared Kushner going to war
Plus, only the Russians know which variant of the Sukhoi 30 is better – the one they sold China, or the one they sold India. Any full on conflict between the two would make for some very interesting combat analyses. My guess is that the Indian one is better as the Russians know full well from past experience that the Chinese will reverse engineer everything they are sold.
The Chinese reaction would be pretty interesting if they found their Su-30’s comprehensively outfought by Indian ones.
Yet both sides in the hours-long, 900-man melee kept their rifles strapped to their backs, fighting with clubs and fists. Both sides honored truce terms while fighting over them! I wish we could do that.
There were no soldiers captured. The Chiinese army took those Indian soldiers to their camp for treatement when they fell down. You know that Modi doesn’t lie. /s
To my surprise, I am greeted on NC this morning by the smiling face of Tom Suozzi, my utterly reprehensible Democratic Congresscritter. I am volunteering for his primary opponent, and delighted to see NC helping to drain his coffers.
This weirdly made me smile.
Yeah…I got Amy McGrath, Kentucky’s Dem fighter-pilot candidate. Also had a smile.
I got “Sliding Door Hardware”.
No wonder the chicks ignore me.
a different chris
June 19, 2020 at 9:17 am
fresno dan
June 16, 2020 at 9:08 am
I don’t know what has happened to me.
When I opened NC the ads were all these sultry young babes from Russia, Vietnam, and Columbia telling me how desperate they were to marry a
richolder American just like me. Something about how appealing maturity was…Gone are those days…Now Wayne LaPierre is glaring at me, telling me they want to take my guns unless I join the NRA. Hmmm, I gave up my toy six shooter about ?60? years ago???
If only I had clicked more on the hot young babes ads…
if only I could get them back
==============================
Now I am getting house ads – I have been frequenting Realtor.com as I am thinking of moving out of my abandoned refrigerator into a domicile with multiple rooms, although some would argue that the vegetable crisper and freezer compartment qualify as rooms…
And by the way, I figured out why I got an NRA ad. I had forgotten that I had gone to Zero Hedge, and there was a link to a site about what to say to the police. I have read a number of articles on NC about the wisdom of lawyering up or not talking to the police, and not paying strict attention, I clicked on the link. So it turns out to be an ad for this 2nd amendment supporting book if your arrested after shooting someone with your 2nd amendment guaranteed gun.
Silly me for thinking the innertubes had made a mistake in ad targeting…
now, to do a search for marriage minded women
Hey fresno dan, saw something on the TV tonight from your neck of the woods. I am watching a series called “America in Color” which is collected B&W films which have been colourized. Anyway, the were talking about a coupla baseball teams that were operating out of Fresno, all of whom were Nissan. If you want to watch it, look at about 8 mins into the following episode-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zrn5pmdPtQ
Bet you never heard of them. baseball starts like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth came to visit them.
The Rev Kev
June 19, 2020 at 10:53 am
thanks for that! Fascinating, the documentary was very interesting.
I had never heard of that team. I used to go after I got out of the air force and before I went east to a Buddhist temple that had annual displays of bonsai, and of course the internment of the Japanese during WWII, but the baseball clubs were new to me.
Of course, it was a different age. One of my odd hobbies is visiting cemeteries, and in Fresno’s Belmont cemetery you will see markers with the inscription “Woodmen” which I had thought was something to do with loggers. Nope. As well as a Japanese section.
I see these in my local Oregon cemetery as well – the Woodmen of the World are a social fraternity and they sold burial insurance:
http://agraveinterest.blogspot.com/2011/06/woodmen-of-world-and-tree-stone-grave.html?m=1
Many of the local monuments are concrete stumps!
I don’t know if they’re related, but my worst-ever boss shared Congressman Tom’s last name.
Arizona Slim: Suozzi is an uncommon Italian surname. Likely that they are relatives.
Oh, goodie. But now I know. Being utterly reprehensible runs in the family.
RE: Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure
The link to outcome sin ABO blood type is a small one but still important, becasue it points to Oxidative Stress as being a predictor of outcome.
You can read in “Oxidative Stress in Erythrocytes of Banked ABO Blood” that superoxides (O2-) are increased in blood group O and it endured oxidative insult more efficiently than A and B. Why is this important?
Because when superoxides combine with nitric oxide it makes peroxynitrite, and that kills viruses in the cell. And the ABO gene/enzyme needs Manganese to work. As does SOD2, an enzyme that turns O2- into H2O2. So is it that people with O type blood spare the Manganese for SOD2 instead of ABO?
But I would venture to guess that in patients who have severe COVID19 you will see varying levels of O2- and H2O2. And finding the balance of those might lead to a more systemic treatment.
Oxidative Stress is the most studied but most underutilized treatment in medicine.
“Oxidative Stress is the most studied but most underutilized treatment in medicine.” True. But the chemistry is very complex and as you point out, getting the reduction/oxidation balance is not obvious. Too many people tried to market supplements to make a quick buck
But most people do not know if they need more/less of O2- and H2O2. And they do not know their genetics and how it may predispose them to needing certain nutrients. Riboflavin, for example, will provide more antioxidant results than vitamin C ever will but you never hear about it.
Researchers know this, and doctors could test for it. But they don’t.
My autocorrect greatest hits:
Excellent!: “excrement!”
Happy birthday!: “hope you!”
I get “Thanos” instead of “thanks”, literal advertising built into my spell checker….
“hope you die” not “hope you”
The man who invented autocorrect should burn in hello.
` Anonymous
Strange. I never have trouble with autocorrugatorade.
Some years back the company secretary sent out the menu for the upcoming holiday party. One of the items to be served was Vegetable Crudites’. The spell check, of course, did not recognize French so corrected that to Vegetable Crudities. We all wondered into exactly what shapes the veggies were to be cut.
“Politics: serial incompetence”
So after several months the U has decided to dump the contract tracing “app” as a waste of time. I have no idea why they could not have leased one from China or North Korea or any of the other countries that have used theirs with success. To explain their decision, a long-retired civil servant was summoned out of his retirement to explain things. Here is what he said-
“Well, … one hesitates to say this but there are times when circumstances conspire to create an inauspicious concatenation of events that necessitate a metamorphosis, as it were, of the situation such that what happened in the first instance to be of primary import fraught with hazard and menace can be relegated to a secondary or indeed tertiary position while a new and hitherto unforeseen or unappreciated element can and indeed should be introduced to support and supersede those prior concerns not by confronting them but by subordinating them to the over-arching imperatives and increased urgency of the previously unrealised predicament which may in fact now, ceteris paribus, only be susceptible to radical and remedial action such that one might feel forced to consider the currently intractable position in which one finds oneself.”
In other words they stuffed up.
Worst rendition of the Declaration of Independence, ever.
Clearly he learned at the feet of the great Professor Irwin Corey.
Sir Humphrey, welcome back!
https://www.quotes.net/movies/yes_minister_108837
> I don’t know what letter-form a dead cat makes when it bounces, but it’s not a “V.”
h
!
HAir pollutants reduce the amount of UV light that hits the ground.
At higher altitude, more UV hits the ground.
Oops, air not hair.
Somebody posted yesterday about incest in the British Isles…
https://gizmodo.com/genome-analysis-points-to-incest-among-ireland-s-prehis-1844055888
Wow I did not realize Aunt Jemima et al were real people. And their families get squat.
Can you imagine what an “Uncle Tom” ice cream or whatever would have to pay if “Tom” was, say, actually Tom Cruise? Hundreds of millions at least.
And yes, for the white-splainers not ignoring the fact that around 1900 that the caste system also ranked the Italians, the Irish and Poles as sub-humans too.
But it was a caste above and was a bit easier to escape because you (we actually, waves to great grandpa) could change your name, lose the accent -not so simple for 1st gen- and “assimilate”. But hey everybody went to church so it was a morally superior time, am I right? /s
The new figure is Sheila but is she a real “Bonza Sheila”?
New brand:
Aunt Jemima’s Pandering Cakes
At age 5, it was obvious to me that Aunt Jemima was a nice lady who made really good pancakes. I expressed the wish that she move to my neighborhood so I could go to her house and have breakfast. After a moment of silence, my mom laughed and said she probably wouldn’t be allowed to. I asked why not, and for the first time heard about race.
Aunt Jemima was the beginning of my interest in civil rights.
China?
There is an article that may give a good take on India-China dispute.
The basic idea is that India is activating and increasing nearby airbases and military facilities near and capable of injecting forces into China’s only land based connection to Pakistan, and China fears this could be used to interrupt it’s only link to Pakistan thru nearby disputed area currently occupied by Pakistan (POK) but claimed by India.
In the event of an increase with already existng conflict with U.S. in the Pacific, China will want this connection to Pakistan and beyond to access oil, and also the keep it’s belt and road initiative access the the Middle East, or whatever other options it offers.
The short version is it is a reaction to India trying to strengthen its hold on Kashmir.
But i do agree with the above as well.
> India is activating and increasing nearby airbases and military facilities near and capable of injecting forces into China’s only land based connection to Pakistan
Any connection to Himalayan headwaters?
Could be. The Chinese have shown a tendency to work towards their own best interests to the exclusion of everyone else, a form of Chinese Exceptionalism. Thus, India had better prepare to seize the headwaters of the rivers upon which so much of their population depends before China dams it off or diverts the flow back towards China proper. India would find natural allies in this endeavour in the Burmese, Laos, Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Thais, and Vietnamese.
As climate change worsens, wars over water sources is almost a given.
I don’t believe that water control is the most important issue in the western Tibetan region – the key watersheds under Chinese control are in central and eastern Tibet. I’m not even so sure the key issue is access into Pakistan. That link is more symbolic than anything else – the environment is so extreme up there and transport so difficult, its hard for me to see land traffic through there to Pakistan as anything but a symbolic connection, rather than one with real strategic/economic value. My impression is that the people who talk about the importance of the land link between Pakistan and China spend too much time looking at maps, and not enough time actually visiting that region – its incredibly inhospitable and difficult terrain. Simply maintaining a basic road surface for the summer season is an epic undertaking.
I think its a simple case of China wishing to strategically secure as much high ground as possible. Its opportunistic – the disputes between India and Pakistan have given China the opportunity to insert themselves into this region and they are taking it.
“Liquidating the Labor Force”
After reading this description, I was reminded of something that I read earlier. It said that during Cold War One, that northern Illinois was a prime target for a Soviet nuclear strike due to its high industrial production capacity. But when you stop and think about it, is that even true anymore? How much is even still there? There were lots of industrial cities and industrial centers back then but what is there now? Would such areas still rate a Russian nuke? Nowadays, if the Russians wanted to nuke American industrial production, then they would have to nuke parts of China. Sad to say, some cities have been so run down – as a matter of deliberate policy – that these days a nuke would probably cause $20 billion of improvements.
I read that the per capita GDP of Detroit (city, not metro) at $17,338 is now lower than many Chinese cities such as Wuhan or even Guadalajara ($17880).
It’s lying on the floor for someone to pick up, repatriate manufacturing jobs and increase standard of living(of course after having decimated it).
Conversely what happens when some don’t get their way.
2020 (fresh of the presses) per capita income in Detroit is now $16,967. But, the median home value is only $54,212. So there’s that.
In the 1980’s, P.J. O’Rourke cracked that the Soviet Union should target Japan instead of the United States, as that would allow the Soviets to destroy the US economy.
The United States should have its nukes aimed at The Village Voice, so that we could kill a lot of communists.
O/T but some might want to know.
https://www.treehugger.com/
Is back up and running
The Atlantic article is interesting. I’m not a scholar on this type of stuff, but I’d been reading these recent rulings as the article says, that being essentially “dude, you have to at least try to make a case here.” I’d note that I’ve seen a lot of rejoicing on the left about this stuff, but, unless I am wrong, the SCOTUS isn’t necessarily striking things down so much as saying “you didn’t make a case.” That worries me, but these days doing the right thing for the wrong reason seems to be about as good as we get.
If the defendant doesn’t make a case, then a court can’t really rule on the merits of what was done because no valid arguments justifying the action have been presented. The court can remand and vacate for additional clarification of the issue.
This is not the first time roberts has used legal prestidigitation to pull obama’s “signature achievement” chestnuts out of the fire. He also rescued obamacare’s insurance mandate and associated fines (the same mandate that obama denounced during his campaign) by declaring them a “tax.”
It’s no wonder michelle “love[s] him to death.” If w. bush hadn’t nominated john roberts, the obamas might have no “signature achievements” to speak of.
https://time.com/5421736/michelle-obama-george-bush-candy/
The Citizens United decision is the gift that keeps on giving…
RE: Juneteenth
I was informed by my employer a couple days that we would have today off for Juneteenth. I am quite sure most of the upper management at my company had never heard of Juneteenth until recently. I only became aware of it after being out of college – one of those nice northeast liberal arts ones that gives you a well rounded education – for well over a decade, maybe two.
I thought that in terms of creating a more equitable society, rather than giving a bunch of white people who’d never heard of Juneteenth the day off, it would be far better if Juneteenth and similar events were simply taught as part of everyone’s public education.
So I was encouraged when I saw this headline – From Juneteenth to the Tulsa massacre: What isn’t taught in classrooms has a profound impact
And this subheader –
Now the article is otherwise pretty good, but this is how it describes Juneteenth –
Except that isn’t what it really is. It makes it sound like it’s a commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation, rather than it being the day over two years later when white people finally bothered to tell the last of the slaves that it had happened. Without that detail regarding the continuing negligence of black people’s wellbeing, it becomes much more of a feelgood story for white people.
Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but isn’t this exactly the kind of subtle, systemic racism we need to get rid of, right in the middle of an article about how we need to get rid of systemic racism?
The irony, it burns.
Well said.
Speaking of Juneteenth, here’s the latest bit of bluster from the Twitterer-In-Chief:
“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”
Courting disaster is one thing. Embracing it is something else altogether. Does Trump actually want a shoot-out at the BOK Corral?
Considering COVID-19, this is one protest BLM should un-attend and thus putting the spotlight on MAGA as solely responsible for the health disaster it will create. Might piss off some of the right-wing not having target to vent on.
lyman alpha blob: You aren’t being oversensitive. The recent (last Tuesday) discovery of Juneteenth is for white people. First, black people already knew about it. Second, it is about the arrival of news in Texas, where the knowledge of the Emancipation Proclamation had been pretty much embargoed by the existing power structure for 2.5 years. Third, it is one part of an almost embarrassing wavelet of white lists and concerns that are not indicating what white people think the sudden enlightenment indicates. I am seeing reading lists that are along the lines of: “Did you know that James Baldwin wrote a famous gay-themed novel?”
Yep. Giovanni’s Room. Considered a classic of literature about gay men. Published in 1956. Who knew that African Americans had a range that exended into gay/lesbian issues? Talk about getting the news late.
So the sudden interest in Juneteenth is mainly about white lack of interest, lack of knowledge, lack of concern for the, errrr, complexities of U.S. history.
Next up? The Dawes Act and the attempt to destroy the Native American nations completely. Who knew?
On the other hand, DJG, one star traded ignorance for all-too-typical US arrogance. Pharrell Williams, grammy rap alumnus, stated today that Juneteenth should become a holiday worldwide, because anything that happened in the US, no matter how much delayed and how badly handled, was certainly a world-leading event.
> Juneteenth, the June 19 commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States.
The date June 19 arises from historical circumstances in Texas. The purpose of the celebration can obviously be broader, much as the date of Veteran’s Day commemorates the end of World War I, but the purpose is now to honor the military generally. Let’s not logic chop.
The Sick Kids Toronto pediatric hospital, which is internationally famous, released guidelines to advise the province of Ontario on how to reopen schools this September:
https://www.sickkids.ca/PDFs/About-SickKids/81407-COVID19-Recommendations-for-School-Reopening-SickKids.pdf
Would be very curious to have the input of commenters on this. For starters, they recommend against masks, mainly because of the issues of getting compliance with kids. Also, to me it seems there are a lot of assumptions… for example they want to put the screening due diligence on parents, but what about the conflict of interest with pressures on parents to be at work? Also, just generally, I’m still not understanding how this isn’t going to get passed around at school and then brought home? How is the transmission risk for kids lower than adults?
I think they should alter the school year and hold outdoor classes in summertime.
….they recommend against masks, mainly because of the issues of getting compliance with kids.
About that. My daughter and I were discussing this just yesterday. She reviews medical insurance claims, and has seen an increasing number of claims for treatment of impetigo from mask wearing. If you’ve ever had impetigo, you know what a highly contagious, miserable mess it is, particularly when it’s on your face.
Kids are especially susceptible–scratching their faces or other body parts with jagged, dirty fingernails. It’s a particular management problem when it gets on the scalp. I remember it from scratching mosquito bites during muggy midwest summers. The dampness under a mask, especially if it’s not perfectly clean or a kid’s face is not perfectly clean (!), creates a fertile environment for bacterial growth.
Ideally medical personnel use disposable masks and change them often. The cloth masks the general public is wearing are altogether different. While much has been made of the need to wear them to provide protection against covid, almost nothing is being said about the scrupulous hygiene with which they must be maintained, and the consequences if they are not.
Insisting that antsy little kids wear masks all day every day in the classroom, or teenagers who may have acne for that matter, could possibly present complications beyond mere “compliance” issues, despite how “proactive” it may make politicians and public health experts feel.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/impetigo/symptoms-causes/syc-20352352
Based on squirming alone I would agree that masks are not feasible on kids.
Thanks for flagging the skin infection issue, that’s a very timely reminder including for us adults… something I will remind our workers about.
A somewhat related true story of a chance meeting with a young woman at a taco and bar hangout in Ocean Beach some years ago. PreV(before virus days). The place was crowded at happy hour and she and her friend graciously offered us a place at their table. As we all chatted it came up that she had just returned from a stint in the Peace Corps. She had served in a tropical South Pacific island country. Surrounded by ocean, but with very little fresh water. She said it was really difficult to keep clean and most water was very rationed for all people on the island. She usually drank what she needed for hydration, but gave most of her “extra” water to the women and kids she worked with daily. Her body, with some kind of”wipes” handled it pretty well, except for her face. When she got back to CA, her home state, and had her return physical the doc was shocked. Her face was covered with some kind of fungus. He treated her for it. As we met, this was a month or so later. As she spoke, we noticed the patch of white still left on her face. She said the doc said it was “stubborn” case. She finally was going to see some kind of specialist. It made us sad to her her story. She seemed very kind and compassionate.
It reminds me of other stories here in good ole USA. Detroit water debacle. Navajos not having access to fresh water and not being able to have enough at home to wash their hands now…in a pandemic. Alabama town that was swindled out of a working sewer system. Polluted waterways all over the country. Egregious and blatant dumping of waste from huge factory farms. Toxic pollutants in city water supplies from industries, airports and military installations. Water is the lifeblood of the planet and her inhabitants. There is so much to be concerned with and this is a big one.
There was a discussion recently on NC about self-checkout at stores. Here is the end product of what might have been a scanning error, if that.
https://twitter.com/TheLakeWolf/status/1273238517984956417
The next time you do self check out remember my neighbor who got cashiered from cashier job. And “shrink” something expensive.
“A good time to live on the ocean? ‘Seasteaders’ double down during pandemic”
I wish these people would build one of these Seasteads just for the schadenfreude. We all saw how quickly the Coronavirus went through an aircraft carrier where people were under discipline and orders. Can you imagine how quickly Coronavirus would spread through a Seastead? Especially if it was populated by rich, entitled libertarians who refuse to quarantine? Who would even refuse to wear masks and still demand the luxurious lifestyle on offer like buffets, massages and hall meetings? Who knows. They might even move Burning man to their Seastead to keep out the riff-raff. Hope that don’t forget about the sprinkler system and the inadvisability of fires at sea.
Well, there is someone who thinks having a home in Malibu is just quite healing of something or other. Check out Bob Dylan’s June 12 interview in the NYT. No link, but should easy enough to find. Water is healing…can we all move to Malibu or ?
as the covid reporting continues to ignore both the 3 weeks of mass protest across the u.s., & the fact that there was no significant uptick in the number of covid cases resulting from them. it’s sorta like all these protests occurred in an alternate universe or something…
An alternate universe is certainly one way you could describe poverty.
The Trump rally in OK doesn’t happen until tomorrow. There are mass gatherings and then there are mass gatherings. The experts know the difference, and that’s all that counts.
i now consider my comment ‘everdeen approved’. thanks!…
the cognitive dissonance involved in accepting this narrative is truly stupefying, eh?…
Check, check and check.
And speaking of stupefying, I cannot seem to reconcile the fact that black americans who are disproportionately affected by covid, presumably due to the lack of adequate “healthcare,” are encouraged to gather in the streets, while white americans are encouraged to mask up and socially distance; with the fact that black americans apparently view that discrepancy as an indication of “support.”
In an alternate universe, I think there would be a more sinister interpretation of such disparate recommendations to be had.
Once again, just sayin’.
as the covid reporting continues to ignore both the 3 weeks of mass protest across the u.s., & the fact that there was no significant uptick in the number of covid cases resulting from them
You got a link for that fact?
i’m simply pointing out the ‘fact’ that none of the experts have pointed out such a resulting uptick. if you’ve seen any indication that any of them actually have done, please enlighten me…
“ignoring” or is the two-week plus lag-time in reporting?
Per CNN today:
New Covid-19 cases are rising in 23 US states, and 10 saw their highest single-day increases.
(frontpage)
what i can see on cnn (dated 4 hrs go): https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-19-20-intl/h_74be5c351cbefd3ffdd637ee15bacd9e
‘The eight states are: Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah…’
seeing no mention of a correlation between the upticks noted & the protests, never mind the fact that several of these states weren’t exactly hotbeds of protest in the first place…
Here in Florida any “upticks” are being blamed on re-opening too soon and too fast.
Of course the governor is a republican, the state went for Trump, biden wants it BAD in a few months, and Desantis = Trump in political calculus.
the fact that several of these states weren’t exactly hotbeds of protest in the first place…
Again, please give this untutored Floridian a link documenting that fact. This is not Daily Kos.
Can’t say it’s definitive or anything, but here is a story about the apparent lack of spiking.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/protests-covid-outdoor-masks.html?via=recirc_recent
I suppose there is more than one possible explanation, but could it possibly be that we actually have been overreacting, when all is said and done? It’s certainly not something I want to admit right now, but here we are.
I have seen some reporting on it. Trouble is it’s difficult to draw conclusions right now for a lot of reasons –
protests did not start in areas that already had significant community spread.
protesters are mostly young and so likely to get mild cases before passing it on to others.
1-2 weeks to show symptoms plus 1-2 more weeks to get sick enough to seek treatment and show up in stats.
protesters are mostly poor and unlikely to be able to afford medical care, so won’t seek testing or treatment unless they’re close to dying.
All of these mean you wouldn’t see the numbers rise for a few permutations of the incubation period.
Still though it is encouraging thus far w/r to outdoors being significantly safer.
All good points.
Here’s a report published today on several cities where there were large protests.
https://news.yahoo.com/no-sign-coronavirus-spike-protests-officials-remain-cautious-205434027.html
> It’s sorta like all these protests occurred in an alternate universe or something
The protests are outdoors, in the summer sun, marchers were in motion, and I doubt there’s the sort of long-term grouping with conversation what we saw in the Arkansas pool episode, for example. (I would imagine the situation of kettled or jailed protesters would be different.) Also, some protesters were masked.
I agree that the people getting huffy about Trump’s rally in Tulsa, while also cheering the protesters on (or encouraging voting in person in the Wisconsin primary) are not being morally consistent.* I also agree the health professionals should not speak collectively as health professionals on the matter, because that’s going to impede our response to a vaccine, let alone the next pandemic.
NOTE * I don’t see “party loyalty” as a virtue. You can indeed argue, from a “social determinants of health” viewpoint, that the effects of racism have bad effects on the racially disfavored group, and you would be right. In that case, it seems odd to demand that communities subject to “deaths of despair,” for whom health care professionals are not standing up, should follow the rules set by those same professionals, when the rules are so inconsistently applied. It’s such a mess.
Some Europeans have said that the country seems to have “given up.” I’m not sure they’re wrong. Everybody seems to be looking for their own carve-out.
UPDATE Adding, there was a covid spike after in-person Wisconsin voting. But that was earlier in the year (not sunnny) and the voters ended up in a bat cave, close together, at the voting booths. And despite efforts made to clean the booths, etc., they touched plenty of surfaces in common.
The Sick Kids Toronto pediatric hospital
This paragraph sets the tone:
We acknowledge that we are not educators
of elementary or secondary school children and may not
appreciate all the operational and logistical considerations in running a classroom, school or a school board. With this in mind, this document is not intended as an exhaustive school guidance document or implementation strategy, as this is the primary responsibility of the Ministry of Education, with consideration for several key stakeholders (e.g. Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour, Public Health authorities, teachers, schools, parents and children).
It’s at least an effort, a starting point. Ontario CIVID-19 guidance has been very direct – they don’t have the cornucopia of opinions and decrees from cities, counties, states and federal level you do here.
Anybody here in the U.S seen a similar publication from their state? It would be nice to have comparisons.
Link to the comment with the document
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/06/links-6-19-2020.html#comment-3377281
About the disclaimer…. I understand that Ontario is making an announcement about the school issue later today… I wonder how much they are going to still take that document as-is or what/how they are going to interpret.
From David Sirota:
“Party leaders are desperately trying to buy the Colorado Senate primary for a scandal-plagued opponent of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal”
So if Dems take the senate, nothing much will change. Unless…
https://sirota.substack.com/p/beltway-dems-are-trying-to-prevent
Why would you think that anything would change if the Dems control the Senate? You can’t remember what happened in 2008?
The Dems have the country convinced that the “National Emergency” ends on January 20, 2021. They have no idea how screwed they are.
The Dems aren’t great, but assuming Trump gets re-elected, they could block some hard right wing judges from getting on the district and maybe the supreme court.
If Biden got elected as well, with a democratic majority senate, not saying he was my choice, we could get judges who, even if they are pro-corporate, are not anti-minority, anti-voting rights, and anti-abortion like the Trump choices. And maybe bring back the Federal Monitor for the police to clamp down on and reform police departments with a pattern of abuse.
As John Cleese once happily answered in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “Ah, can do, but won’t.” (From 2008, still germane.)
“Doggone it, we just couldn’t hold the line. Senator Blowhard has those two pharma companies plus that chain of profitable hospitals in his state, and his colleague Bonehead on the other coast has all those oil companies.”
As Lambert might put it, “Revolving hero, revolving villain.” The Dems can never come up with quite enough votes for something their pa
ymasters really don’t want.
Wait: Senator Blowhard and Senator Bonehead both represent MY state.
Or maybe they represent EVERY state.
Neoliberal desegregation Interfluidity
Out of the box thinking with some interesting proposals.
Integration aspirations coupled to assessed Property taxes is interesting–of course a comment highlights the issues of gerrymandering that currently plagues our representation.
Yes we need to have an imagination to solve our issues.
but, Both Neoliberalism and desegregation have subtle complexities and many moving parts and I am not so sure a personal morality can be legislated–using Juneteenth as an example.
But financial prompting has become the ‘go to’ balm we look to first in America–and sometimes the outcomes work out ok.
imo, reflecting our cultures current values.
Oh man I’m laughin so hard I’m cryin:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/donald-trump-drew-brees-will-regret-apologizing-after-comments-on-national-anthem-protests/ar-BB15GAYT?li=BBnb7Kz
The Donald doesn’t have to stand a couple of feet away from a group of huge black men, waiting for his countdown itself to cue when they get a 100% legal chance to put his white butt on the ground but hard.
And that was before it’s became personal.
Parenthetical note to the good news of the UE (United Electrical) victory in the NLRB election in Kentucky, it is one of two survivors of about a dozen Left labor unions in the CIO, the other being ILWU. UE was diminished by dual unionism and deindustrialization and had been one of the largest industrial unions. ILWU remained largely intact but gradually diminished by deindustrialization and offshoring sugar and pineapple work in Hawaii. So there was a time when concrete material benefits were on the table, and the left was central to the struggle. But good for UE and their successful organization in Kentucky.
Semiconcious
It’s a shame it has become politicized – it has hurt our response and will continue to do so.
Watching Congress hand trillions to Wall St because the pandemic has threatened profits while at the same time stint on helping Main St and declare there’s ‘no more money’ has been irritating, to say the least.
It’s MMT for was Congress wants to spend money on and kitchen table budgeting for what Congress does not want to spend money on.
Ed Walker has 2 good posts reviewing Stephanie Kelton’s book “The Deficit Myth”. Both reviews and the comments are worth reading.
The first is a review of the book’s introduction and index
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/06/11/the-deficit-myth-by-stephanie-kelton-introduction-and-index/
The second is a review of the first chapter, Debunking the Deficit Myth;
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/06/16/debunking-the-deficit-myth/
Read these and then the next time you hear a corporate Dem or Congressman say something scary sounding about ‘the deficit’ you’ll know they’re full of bunk.
I have found the easiest way to get someone to seriously consider MMT is to point this out: the politicians, pundits and business people who are otherwise deficit-scolding austerity pushers never bring up the “But how do we PAY for it?” concerns for any expenditure, not matter how large, when it comes to spending that benefits them.
RE:Prevalence of IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan – implications for the ability to produce long-lasting protective antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (preprint) merRxiv (via). From the abstract: “Prevalence of IgM antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 was 31.4% in COVID-19 patients, 1.5% in healthcare providers, 1.3% in general workers, and 0.2% in other patients…. Very few healthcare providers had IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, though a significant proportion of them had been infected with the virus. After SARS-CoV-2 infection, people are unlikely to produce long-lasting protective antibodies against this virus.” I would want to know about the IgM/IgG test, though.
The results of IgM/IgG tests tell something about how long ago you were infected. IgM are usually the first antibodies to appear by after a week (6-12 days) after symptom onset and their presence is relatively transient. IgGs are prevalent after 2-3 weeks and (typically) and end being the only detectable antibodies peaking around 28 days after the start of acute phase and decaying thereafter to some basal level (if I remember correctly). A friend of mine that had one of these “mild” Covid 19 infections (no pneumonia) has tried the fast IgM/IgG test and her result was exactly what one could expect: IgM negative and IgG positive (3-4 months after she was infected by the end of february). If the result is only IgM positive this would suggest early phase of infection and if it is both IgM and IgG positive you are supposedly in the midst of Covid-19. But we are not all in identical conditions and not all immune responses follow this standard.
How accurate are the tests?
I don’t know, according to the brochure about 96% in sensitivity (I don’t believe that) and 97% specific.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3089476/there-may-be-no-immunity-against-covid-19-new-wuhan-study?utm_source=TodayOnline&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchange&utm_content=3089476
https://www.ibtimes.sg/humans-may-never-develop-immunity-against-covid-19-suggests-us-chinese-joint-study-47055
I cant comment on the veracity of the conclusions of this study. I just want to point out something I noticed about the way in which it is covered in the american outlets vs foreign. The above two links refer to the study as being a joint project between Chinese researchers and researchers from a university in Texas. Nbc, the ny times, newsweek, etc all omit that it is a joint project between the Chinese and Americans.
The press from outside the u.s also mentions the results from a study from Tsinghua University in Beijing . This study raises serious question about possibility of (Ade)antibody- dependent enhancement. From ibt link above “Another study, conducted by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing revealed that the more antibodies produced by the patients of novel Coronavirus patients, the worse the outcome – the patient with the strongest antibody response in the study had died.
They described it as a phenomenon of antibody-dependent enhancement. In such cases, the viruses hitch a ride on an antibody to infect cells they could not enter. As per Wang, it was “a big concern to be closely monitored”.” The u.s media chose to totally ignore it. Hopefully there is nothing to ade and this coronavirus but interesting to see the u.s outlets omit discussion of it while others around the world atleast mention it.
Ade was likely a major issue with with a vaccine rolled out in 2017 for over 800,000 school children in the Philippines to protect them against dengue fever. It made a subset of the kids sick and and killed some. The rollout was halted.
the study appears to me to be without much merit, They made assumptions about how many HCWs should have been infected , It was not based on PCR psotive HCWS
re: Newsom and CA mask requirement.
Newsom didn’t have the guts to extend the lockdown the additional ten days to two weeks that would have solidified the low infection rate in two thirds his state and prevented the recent spike in deaths. He actually accelerated the original and updated reopening stages schedule. Now in my previously super low county of 1.3 million I’m seeing the payoff in a spike of both and another ‘look at me look at me!’ executive power spasm that in theory opens up another few hundred thousand interactions with police every week. He’s Presidential timber the way W and DJT were, with a more natural smile.
Ann Pettifor. Open Democracy. Vultures Are Circling Our Fragile Economies. Wow. Not a long analysis but so clear. She’s on a par with Richard Murphy. Paraphrasing sporadically here: “Private capital markets have to be once again in subordination to the role of servant economies, not masters of them…. Government must manage capital flows so billionaires will once again pay taxes!…. Government must manage the creation of credit… and much more.” Because, newsflash, credit IS evolution. Instead of Graeber’s “money is debt” – let’s get clear on this subject – let’s use Ann Pettifog’s insight: Credit is civilization/evolution/the future. Credit in our muffled thinking is just a column in the spread sheet. But credit does not belong to the finance/rentier class who live in the immediate past always collecting their mortgage/debt payments like Scrooge – those clever thieves have just commandeered it. Credit is civilization itself and it lives in the future and is only made fragile by constant rent demands. And we’re too numbed out to see what’s going on. We’re too good hearted. Or brainwashed, because credit belongs to the future, not the parasites.
It’s so annoying when my spell checker calls her Ann Pettifog. Right? How do you kill your spell checker?
On an iOS (Apple iPhone or iPad) device:
Settings app –> General –> Keyboard –> Auto-Correction (slide switch to off)
Credit is the means by which we enforce the religion of Progress.
Great comment. Thanks.
“Quaker Oats Replaces Historically Racist Aunt Jemima Mascot With Black Female Lawyer…”
Quaker Oats owned by Pepsi, the anti-food/nutrition conglomerate. I have met a few Quakers and the ones I knew ate good, nutritious food not the chemical soup ladled out by Pepsi. I pity that poor old Quaker guy doomed to spend MMT Eternity on a Pepsi oats box and other Pepsi anti-food products. He must have sinned mightily to be in such Hell.