Glennda
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I suspect that Moscow is just preparing another bunker obliteration in Lviv full of NATO decision makers.
The previous one has had little discussion in US media. Who was in there?Thank you. Very thought provoking.
Neither Frodo or Gollum are evil people in their core, so I feel human compassion for their addiction. That is the human component. Sam is the one who sees the danger in their attachment. Did Gollum sacrifice himself to free Frodo or was that an “accident”?Time to rebuild the Shire.
The walls have begun to crumble.Ilargi highlights –
“..all other nations had to turn to the U.S. for manufacturing during the long rebuilding process. In Europe, this process carried on well into the 1950s.”@ Dr. D – what is your problem with helping poor people? You seem to have swallowed Ann Rand’s social Darwinism whole.
No, the work program in the New Deal did not bring us out of the depression, ONLY if you measure by the stock market. BUT it was a huge success if you measure the decrease in Human Suffering. However I do agree with the part of the article about manufacturing with no competition did.
@Noirette
Thanks for the info on Donbass and insight on Davos.@ V Arnold @ Doc Robinson Thanks for bringing up John Taylor Gatto and the Education system.
I’m going to read at least one of them. My grandson (at 8) is showing signs of not wanting the public school crowded classes.Also on the issue of babies and small kids not getting enough interaction with people, what about all the hundreds of kids that grew up on farm when the family made a trip to town once a month. Did they suffer?
@Madamski
“I cite Fuller because he reminds us that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. ”
Thanks.
What candles are each of us lighting for our communities?
John Day does a good job.
Ilargi does too.
So do many others here. Thanks to all the candle lighters!@ danbashaw
That was my impression too. Seems like time to just wait and see.“The intro paragraphs seem intentionally spammy, the narrative escalatory, the science vague, with no references. Too many flags. It felt to me like it was designed to be widely circulated and then discredited.”
And just to be the odd-one-out here — I got both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Not much post vac reaction, but my 50 yr old daughter had teeth chattering fever from her second dose. I let myself be pressured to get the vaccine to give my daughter peace-of-mind, since she works with a lab doing covid research.
@ Mr. House
“I enjoyed this (lifted from the comments at ecosophia)”I also enjoyed that link. What a witty writer, with great turns of phrase. I usually can’t read all the comments to JMG’s blog Ecosophia, but this is a keeper. I really like his calling academics, goldfish who think they are whales in our muddy pond of current history. Thanks for sharing that.
@ John Day – thank you for being the light of clarity and reason about treatments for covid. You have a voice I can trust.
@ Ilargi – thank you for this blog. It makes my morning coffee much more eye opening.
Made me laugh.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that.”
– George Carlin
But really people are people, and to err is human.====
Here is a very interesting analysis of the “rioters” via CH Smith. Apparently we have a very middle class group that is different then past extremists.@sumac.carol
Re Kunstler and small farm movement: no one “small” could afford to jump in at this point. Gates and his like have bid land prices thru the roof. We’re more likely imho to end up in the “everyone is a serf working on the Lord’s land” scenario. — This is the scenario I’ve quietly been beginning to see as our future. Gates and his serfs.100 yr old Nuclear reactors???? I live down river from a 2014 mothballed one scheduled to remove the spent sections, but of course nothing has been done. The whole SF bay could receive its contents after an earthquake. I’ll be taking some time to map the parts of the US that might be off limits in 50 years.
And….“renewable energy” with solar and wind “can power the world.” Too bad that can’t work due to scarcity/ high prices of rare earths etc etc., and EROI.
Living in the SF Bay Area, seeing that red sun, reminds me of the full day of red sun and red skies. The whole day was like being on another planet, and added to the full lock-down for covid, it was a very spooky day. The fires have started again in a small way, due to very very little rain. We’re going into another drought again.
Love the Bernie and the Bats photoshop.
As far as the news goes — it’s the swamp again.
@ Noirette
Your discussion of the over all death rate of Covid 19 being like a bad flu year is good.My main problem with Covid is the evidence of Long Covid symptoms that can follow it that are Not like any usual flu. I know people who are dealing with long covid symptoms.
With all the libertarian alt-right diatribes on TAE, here is some left analysis of what happened with the Trump mob. Mike Davis from England has this view of what it all means for the Republican party. Others are suggesting that the Centrist Republicans can now make an alliance with the Democratic party, especially since Bernie Sanders has been totally sidelined.
This may allow for all the Dem hawks to move to their usual place at the right of center.
Just a look at Biden appointees shows it’s going to be wars as usual.https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/riot-on-the-hill
But something unexpectedly profound happened: a deus ex machina that lifted the curse of Trump from the careers of conservative war hawks and right-wing young lions, whose ambitions until yesterday had been fettered by the presidential cult. Today was the signal for a long-awaited prison break. The word ‘surreal’ has been thrown around a lot, but it accurately characterizes last night’s bipartisan orgy, with half of the Senate election-denialists channeling Biden’s call for a ‘return to decency’ and vomiting up vast amounts of noxious piety.
Let me be clear: the Republican Party has just undergone an irreparable split. By the White House’s Fuhrerprinzip standards, Pence, Tom Cotton, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee, Ben Sasse, Jim Lankford even Kelly Loeffler are now traitors beyond the pale. This ironically enables them to become viable presidential contenders in a still far-right but post-Trump party. Since the election and behind the scenes, big business and many mega-Republican donors have been burning their bridges to the White House, most sensationally in the case of that uber-Republican institution, the National Association of Manufacturers, which yesterday called for Pence to use the 25th Amendment to depose Trump. Of course, they were happy enough in the first three years of the regime with the colossal tax cuts, comprehensive rollbacks of environmental and labor regulation, and a meth-fed stock-market. But the last year has brought the unavoidable recognition that the White House was incapable of managing major national crises or ensuring basic economic and political stability.
The goal is a realignment of power within the Party with more traditional capitalist interest groups like NAM and the Business Roundtable as well as with the Koch family, long uncomfortable with Trump. There should be no illusion that ‘moderate Republicans’ have suddenly been raised from the grave; the emerging project will preserve the core alliance between Christian evangelicals and economic conservatives and presumably defend most of the Trump-era legislation. Institutionally, Senate Republicans, with a strong roster of young talents, will rule the post-Trump camp and, via vicious darwinian competition – above all, the battle to replace McConnell – bring about a generational succession, probably before the Democrats’ octogenarian oligarchy has left the scene. (The major internal battle on the post-Trump side in the next few years will probably center on foreign policy and the new cold war with China.)
That’s one side of the split. The other is more dramatic: the True Trumpists have become a de facto third party, bunkered down heavily in the House of Representatives. As Trump embalms himself in bitter revenge fantasies, reconciliation between the two camps will probably become impossible, although individual defections may occur.
I hope this will encourage real discussion on TAE of what’s happening in the US, and not the recent diet of offensive language, disagreements and long winded posts. Let’s open our eyes to the moment.
From outside the melee, it is easy to define the serious issues that should dominate political debate in the United States. But instead of that, we hear a torrential exchange of insults. The establishment elite cannot stoop to exchange viewpoints with populists denounced as deplorable, racist, misogynist, white supremacist, fascist and now even “terrorist.”
The populists’ unfocused denunciation of the elite describes Wall Street Democrats as “socialists” and veers off into accusations of genocidal vaccination campaigns, occult pedophile rites and Satanism. Instead of anything resembling a clear political division, America is increasingly split by blind, burning mutual hatred.
What American political life needs is not more censorship, but the self-censorship of reason. That is very far away.
I’ve been thinking about the question of masks and how “effective” they are.
1 – pore size of masks is larger than the size of the virus.
2 – however, the virus needs to travel in a vector or droplet; it cannot fly by itself very far.
3 – a droplet or vector is apt to be bigger than N95 and can be slowed or dispersed by any kind of barrier, even underwear.So that is why wearing masks can greatly slow the spread of the virus.
What can I say??? It just breaks my heart what is being done to Julian Assange.
We live in a deplorable, desperate time. Disasters everywhere. Poor Julian the scape-goat. Covid 19 turning the world upside down with no certainties or comfortable ruts to go along.
Here the sky was dark red- orange when I woke and was still that way at high noon, the smoke from the fires on top of the thick fog. At least it was not in the 90s and 100s around here in the SF Bay Area, it was 64F. As the fog has thinned over the day now the air quality is in the red, but the sky just very dark and golden orange at 4 pm. Soot and ash has covered the cars and everywhere. Climate change has moved the hot weather of LA up here and the ocean currents have move the Alaskan rain south to LA.Perhaps CA should be 5 states, but what a fiasco that would turn into.
What really concerns me right now, is not the elections; it’s always been a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. But I’ll hold my nose and vote for ol’ white Joe.
Local elections are more important to drive a Green New Deal locally, if possible. TPTB are so rich and powerful, it is more likely things will be stalled.What really concerns me right now is The Economy… more bankruptcies of main street, and more service jobs going, going gone. More food banks, more parking lots for people to live in cars, more real health care with vitamins and quick tests. The people in central CA picking the crops have no health care, few resources, probably live in tents or crowded rooms, with working in fields when the Air Quality is code red and no N95 masks to protect them. Nobody has N95 masks; all sold out. No Medicare for All, No Jubilee, No future to be hoped for. These are sad, sad times.
My heart breaks for all the suffering.
The article by Michael Hudson really nailed it – oligarchic disaster capitalism rules.
Where are public banks and medical care for all, when we really need them?Fantastic read from Michael Hudson. He really nails it. Oligarchic capitalism is buying it all, leaving crumbs and pandemic for the 99%. Where are public banks and medical care for all, when we really need them?
Thank you, Bill7.
I respect Ellen Brown’s economic sense and read her article carefully. She has some good points, but she totally misses the medical side of C19. It is extremely contagious in enclosed air spaces, and it has some very serious unusual properties that a typical flu does not have. The long term effects are just beginning to be seen, along with multi-system problems due to the vascular side of it. This is a disease that can be very bad, so I take my Vit D, zinc, Vit C and hope more time will give more understanding.
Certainly the extreme lock downs with police violence is a mistake, but if the populations at risk are aware of the dangers and ust stay home like in Sweden, then an extreme lock-down may not be necessary. The real problem is that we “just don’t know” much about this novel disease. To err on the side of caution is what common sense would suggest.
I, for one, at 78 plan to stay out of harm’s way, now that I retired on Jan 1. I’m fortunate that I have a caring daughter nearby along with my grandson who I do childcare for while schools are closed.
My main social life is now on Zoom, and am helping with a Webinar series focusing on local area groups gearing up to deal with closing refineries and local GND strategies. I’ve somehow become one of the hosts for zoom breakout rooms. New tricks for an old dog, I guess.
FYI John Day is a real doctor. To my knowledge Dr. D is not a real doctor and is a totally different person. I respect John Day, but I usually just skip Dr. D’s angry ranting over-written diatribes.
Until more is known – this is the key.
Thank you again for such good thought provoking essay. My take on this is that the poor will continue to rot, and people will blow off steam in various ways. We will improvise. I , at almost 80, will shelter in place and do networking on zoom to help my local communities to weather the storm. Yes, through the bread riots and collapse, people will still work together to help each other. We will improvise and all the multitude of ways will be like seeds that grow if the soil is right for it.
This is the New Normal – through the uncertainty, disruptions, plague, we will still stop to say hello to a friend or loved one. It will Never Be The Same. The global crony capitalist system was stretched too thin, is too brittle, too full of the past, but now we need to look ahead. We need to celebrate the many ways into the future, because one of them may be our or our grandchildren’s path ahead. So, I water my veggies and hope there is no drought or fire ahead.
The article says: “It is the height of California’s dangerous forest fire season. But despite blazes currently raging, the state’s fire department is dangerously understaffed.” Actually the “height” is in Sept and Oct when undergrowth are super dry tinder.
Yes, a seriously messed up system here in CA – the war on drugs put a huge number of people behind bars who get paid pennies working in Privately owned and run prisons. The real crime – is the war on drugs, which btw targets POC. Wonder why BLM matters, because they are the ones who end up fighting our fires for pennies.
And PG&E which caused the fires due to their neglected maintenance of wires and trees etc etc etc has now somehow escaped bankruptcy when it should have been taken over by local governments and be run by elected managers.
I could go on and on, but the prison one always sets me off. And the 2nd and 3rd waves of the virus will be coming during the real fire season. These fires are not just in the mountains where people build in the forests, but can and do happen in cities. Oakland had a fire take off about 15 years ago. I ended up with a couple staying with us till they got a place again. We are seriously screwed this fall unless we are very very lucky.
You are in good form today, Raul. I laughed 2x, first with the Biden/Trump accusations of Marxist, then at the end with the picture of Putin that he killed Jesus. Always good to see the humor in the nonsense.
As a Californian, it was good to see a list of the cities with the big surges. Living in the East Bay area, I can see a few more quiet months of quiet home life in my future. My veggies are doing well, and I can still water them and get a crop or two before we will need to “conserve” water for the rest of the hot summer in to fall.
Thanks for the good reads with my morning coffee.
Thank you, John Day, for that great medical video from medcram.com
I plan to watch more of those to up grade my vastly out of date physiology education.Green party? I hope they run Jesse Ventura.
But it Biden’s handlers bring in some of Bernie’s ideas, and gets Elizabeth Warren to run as VP, who knows… it might be acceptable.Here is a lot of the summary from a very long and mind glazing science piece of analysis. I’ve quoted from the Abstract and the summary of it. I put some bold on parts of the summary.
Recurring distancing of 8 to 12 weeks are highly likely for the next few years as the virus sweeps through the year, assuming it establishes as a seasonal winter event or in continuing waves through the year, to prevent it from overwhelming critical care. More data will clarify what is more likely to happen.
This is more of the kind of analysis I can understand, rather than dealing with tail event probabilities. Masks and gloves, distancing for old folks looks like the new normal for a while.
Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the postpandemic period
Stephen M. Kissler1,*, Christine Tedijanto2,*, Edward Goldstein2, Yonatan H. Grad1,†,‡, Marc Lipsitch2,†,‡
Abstract
It is urgent to understand the future of severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. We used estimates of seasonality, immunity, and cross-immunity for betacoronaviruses OC43 and HKU1 from time series data from the USA to inform a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. We projected that recurrent wintertime outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 will probably occur after the initial, most severe pandemic wave. Absent other interventions, a key metric for the success of social distancing is whether critical care capacities are exceeded. To avoid this, prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022. Additional interventions, including expanded critical care capacity and an effective therapeutic, would improve the success of intermittent distancing and hasten the acquisition of herd immunity. Longitudinal serological studies are urgently needed to determine the extent and duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Even in the event of apparent elimination, SARS-CoV-2 surveillance should be maintained since a resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024.
…
SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated an ability to challenge robust healthcare systems, and the development and widespread adoption of pharmaceutical interventions will take months at best, so a period of sustained or intermittent social distancing will almost certainly be necessary.In summary, the total incidence of COVID-19 illness over the next five years will depend critically upon whether or not it enters into regular circulation after the initial pandemic wave, which in turn depends primarily upon the duration of immunity that SARS-CoV-2 infection imparts. The intensity and timing of pandemic and post-pandemic outbreaks will depend on the time of year when widespread SARS-CoV-2 infection becomes established and, to a lesser degree, upon the magnitude of seasonal variation in transmissibility and the level of cross-immunity that exists between the betacoronaviruses. Social distancing strategies could reduce the extent to which SARS-CoV-2 infections strain health care systems. Highly-effective distancing could reduce SARS-CoV-2 incidence enough to make a strategy based on contact tracing and quarantine feasible, as in South Korea and Singapore. Less effective one-time distancing efforts may result in a prolonged single-peak epidemic, with the extent of strain on the healthcare system and the required duration of distancing depending on the effectiveness. Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available. The authors are aware that prolonged distancing, even if intermittent, is likely to have profoundly negative economic, social, and educational consequences. Our goal in modeling such policies is not to endorse them but to identify likely trajectories of the epidemic under alternative approaches, identify complementary interventions such as expanding ICU capacity and identifying treatments to reduce ICU demand, and to spur innovative ideas (55) to expand the list of options to bring the pandemic under long-term control. Our model presents a variety of scenarios intended to anticipate possible SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics under specific assumptions. We do not take a position on the advisability of these scenarios given the economic burden that sustained distancing may impose, but we note the potentially catastrophic burden on the healthcare system that is predicted if distancing is poorly effective and/or not sustained for long enough. The model will have to be tailored to local conditions and updated as more accurate data become available. Longitudinal serological studies are urgently required to determine the extent and duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, and epidemiological surveillance should be maintained in the coming years to anticipate the possibility of resurgence.
Thanks for this essay. It is not paranoid when you have an enemy. And the bottom line is that the C19 is the Enemy. Not each other, not assigning shame and blame. We are all very highly charged in this time of Danger. Freeze, Flight, Fight. None of those gut reactions really do the trick.
The big question is – What To Do? Wear masks (and gloves) when in public, stay at home as much as possible, work on a garden (?), work around the huge Limits we have on us. These limits can give structure to preparing for and working with the worst case scenarios.
What to do? Be kind to yourself and to others. Be gentle. Be safe. If lonely, reach out to friends, listen to them. Helping others as best as we can is away forward. It builds that Social Capital that we know is more important than Being Right.
Maybe telling stories of how these Hard Times can be managed, of who did the kind supportive things that we humans can be so good at. How can we cooperate? Who has ideas for funny home made masks? (I want to decorate a sock mask for my grand son. Something to do when I’m not doing Zoom gatherings or gardening or doing taxes.)
Gloves – is that why my mother and grand mother wore gloves? had guest towels? to avoid germs in 1919?Dr. D – thank you for writing a short readable post. Hats off to listening to preferences.
What I noticed in the news stand photo 1940 was all the movie magazines. Never see those any more. Guess our magazines are blogs now.
Thanks, John Day for your good advice about vitamins etc. I’m going to share your blog with my daughter, the shopper in my world, and a research lab manager. She really knows how to suit me up for out visit to get gardening starts and seeds. Lots of reminders not to touch the mask after taking off the gloves, but only touching the attaching elastic to remove it and bag it for later use.
Thanks, Bosco, for your “plain speaking”.
I’ve been a regular reader here for more than a decade, but Doc. D has made it a trial due to his overbearing negative spin with nothing but anger and self-righteousness. The trick has been that about half what he says I agree with, but, oh, the anger is a real put off. I don’t need to agree 100% with what a person says factually, but the lack of humor and self-importance makes it mostly unreadable. I easily scroll past his ranting, but it’s a chore.
Thanks to the rest of you who post, I enjoy all the varied view points, mostly.
Since the USA is so huge, I’d like to see the cases etc broken down by state and region. For CA we have 2 or more main epicenters. I’d also like to see added columns for containment strategies, ie lock down, suggested and mandetory. And also a column for the strain of virus most common. Can some of those university students work on this? There are some very needed info it would be great to have. I know this will be too little and too late, but who can track that data?
I’ve been hearing some stories in the Bay Area about people having their groceries stolen at knife point. And 2 SF taxi drivers loudly arguing over a $5 cab fare. Also stories of child abuse by freaked out, drugged or drunk parents. Nobody wants to talk about the social distress beginning to surface. But it is there.
Again thanks, Raul. – Everyone please donate to this important blog.
I got this link today from a neighbor. It is the best discussion of Lock Down (Hammer) vs. Mitigation strategies for handling the pandemic. The Dance part is farther down the road as the virus mutates over the years.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
The SF Bay Area is mostly into Lock Down. My daughter is doing all my food shopping now, since I’m in the over 70 age group. Most of the groups I’m involved with are doing meetings by Zoom, which is working rather well, especially since people don’t have to drive to meet.
Thank again Raul for all your work both in helping getting me prepared, free from debt, and doing all the virus tracking you’ve been doing.
How is the Greek community doing? People here are stepping up to help the many homeless villages/camps.
Love the Mark Twain quote. If I’d been drinking coffee I might have sprayed the screen. LOL!!! so true.
I love the map Tyler put up of the US military surrounding Iran. Please, when can we move back within our borders? The Wall Trump is building should just keep us within.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only one who has the best approach. Shun the “debates”, speaks out for reconciliation and for peace. For me Tulsi and Bernie would be a fine team to run for election. She knows foreign policy and he cares for helping the poor and the 99%. Health care should be medicare for all with single payer and also choice of private expensive insurance.
What happens to the “transistor-based logic engine” when the lights go out? Our infrastructure is also about 60 years old and it’s time to retire it.
From Dimitri’s blog –
“Let’s add one more salient detail. Over the course of 2020, $4.665 trillion of USTs will mature and will need to be rolled over into new USTs. This is an all-time record, and this is on top of new debt that will have to be issued in order for the US government to be able to stay open. Over the past year the US budget deficit has amounted to $1.022 trillion, which is a 15.8% increase over the previous year. If this trend continues, the new deficit will be around $1.183 trillion. In order to keep the wheels of finance from grinding to a halt, over 2020 the Fed will have to monetize, or print, close to $6 trillion.”So since Trump is the candidate most experienced with Bankruptcy, will people vote for him?
I saw one lone statistic about Bernie that shows he is very close to Biden percent approval. News silence on Bernie, of course. In any case it seems very likely now that Trump with all his free advertising will become our next pres.
And to think I was considering Warren as possible candidate. She’s swallowed the DNC party line whole.
Bernie hasn’t a chance in this time of Red scare polemics. So I guess I’ll stick to the Green Party vote with no real chance there.
US politics is all about the corrupt Neo-liberal country we suffer under. If only CA could be it’s own country, but it too has been bought by the highest bidder.
Thank you, Raul. I’m so glad you have not forgotten Julian Assange.
Thank you, John Day. For reminding us that we could have this complicit trait within each of us.
Thank you, A from Oz. Those are very good questions about his legal situation. What the h.. is up with that?
Another post of interest is a Book review by David Graeber in the NY Review of Books.
Against Economics by Davod Graeber in the Dec 5 NY Review of Books
It’s a long essay, but the book is very long and somewhat impenetrable with lots of economic graphs. It’s a review of Skidelsky’s book- Money and Government: the Past and Future of Economics.
David Graeber quotes: “Skidelsky drily remarks:
There is a paradox here. On the one hand, the theory says that there is no point in trying to profit from speculation, because shares are always correctly priced and their movements cannot be predicted. But on the other hand, if investors did not try to profit, the market would not be efficient because there would be no self-correcting mechanism….
Secondly, if shares are always correctly priced, bubbles and crises cannot be generated by the market….
” This attitude leached into policy: “government officials, starting with [Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan Greenspan, were unwilling to burst the bubble precisely because they were unwilling to even judge that it was a bubble.” The EMH made the identification of bubbles impossible because it ruled them out a priori.If there is an answer to the queen’s famous question of why no one saw the crash coming, this would be it.
…
Any new, viable science will either have to draw on the accumulated knowledge of feminism, behavioral economics, psychology, and even anthropology to come up with theories based on how people actually behave, or once again embrace the notion of emergent levels of complexity—or, most likely, both.Intellectually, this won’t be easy. Politically, it will be even more difficult. Breaking through neoclassical economics’ lock on major institutions, and its near-theological hold over the media—not to mention all the subtle ways it has come to define our conceptions of human motivations and the horizons of human possibility—is a daunting prospect. Presumably, some kind of shock would be required. ”
Skidelsky says ” Any new, viable science” – he still calls it a Science, when it is obvious that economics is more like sociology or anthropology, and should be looked at as a lot of varying theories.
