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Links 9/2/2021

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More skunks can do handstands than we thought Popular Science (Re Silc). This one, for example:

Top marks on degree of difficulty and artistic merit, so far as I’m concerned.

New York, New Jersey governors declare emergencies amid flooding from Tropical Storm Ida; 50M in Northeast under flood watch USA Today. In New York:

And:

Looks like my August 30 post on the fragility of the New York Subway system was fortuitously timed.

We can’t build our way out of the environmental crisis George Monbiot, Guardian. On the construction industry.

Ushering in the New Normal: Viability and Informal Community Leadership in Fukushima Ten Years After 3.11 Asia-Pacific Journal. One article in a special issue devoted to Fukushima.

#COVID

Joe Rogan says he has Covid, took widely discredited drug ivermectin NBC. High stakes!

* * *

Why these Covid vaccine scientist resigned from the FDA MSNBC. Actually a good explainer.

2 top FDA officials resigned over the Biden administration’s booster-shot plan, saying it insisted on the policy before the agency approved it, reports say Business Insider

FDA calls meeting of its advisers to discuss Covid vaccine boosters CNN

WV Gov. Justice reports significant increases in fully vaccinated residents getting COVID, being hospitalized and dying WBOY. See, e.g., on West Virginia as a vaccination success story.

* * *

Reactogenicity and immunogenicity after a late second dose or a third dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 in the UK: a substudy of two randomised controlled trials (COV001 and COV002) The Lancet. Astra-Zenaca. Single dose: n=480. Double dose: n= 321. Triple dose: 80 + 15, The Interpretation: “An extended interval before the second dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 leads to increased antibody titres. A third dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 induces antibodies to a level that correlates with high efficacy after second dose and boosts T-cell responses.”

Predictors of Nonseroconversion after SARS-CoV-2 Infection Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC. From The Study:

“We studied 72 persons, all of whom had a previous positive RT-PCR test but were symptom-free for >3 weeks before blood was collected for testing… We tested plasma samples (n = 144) collected at enrollment and follow-up visits for antibodies to the spike protein by using a validated ELISA … 36% of our cohort represented serologic nonresponders.”

From the Conclusion:

“[W]e show that patients with low SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in their respiratory tract are less likely to mount a systemic antibody response. Although we cannot formally exclude false-positive RT-PCR results in some participants, PCR contamination is highly unlikely as an explanation for our findings (Appendix). We also show that clinical illness does not guarantee seroconversion and that laboratories with highly sensitive RT-PCR assays are more likely to detect serologic nonresponders. These results provide an explanation for the puzzling variability of seroconversion in different cohorts…. The fact that a considerable fraction of RT-PCR positive persons fail to seroconvert has practical implications. Such persons remain undetected in seroprevalence studies, including in vaccine studies that assess protection from asymptomatic infection by measuring antibodies to antigens not included in the vaccine. Seroconverters and nonseroconverters will probably also respond differently to vaccination.”

* * *

We Need to Start Traveling Again. Here’s How. Tony Blair, John Bell, David B. Agus NYT. “We” “need” Tony Blair not to travel anywhere, at any time, for any reason.

Texas district closes schools after covid kills two teachers in one week SF Gate (MB). “‘This closure will also allow time for deep cleaning and sanitizing of all CISD facilities,’ [Superintendent Wesley Holt] said in an email to parents.” Hygiene theatre continues, CDC, good job.

15 million Covid vaccine doses thrown away in the U.S. since March, new data shows NBC

Why the U.S. Still Suffers from Covid Black Agenda Report

China?

China facing demographic, inflation risks ‘Japan never faced’, Beijing urged to act to avoid ‘big surprise’ South China Morning Post. Michael Pettis recommends this thread; au contraire:

Chinese regulators demand Didi and Meituan improve worker conditions FT

China Hedge Funds Pay $300,000 to Beat Wall Street to Best Graduates Bloomberg. If the finance does to China what it did to us, we should win the next war with China easily. Kidding!

Taiwan receives first batch of politically charged Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines Channel News Asia

Myanmar

Justice in the balance as UN considers recognition question Frontier Myanmar

China envoy visits Myanmar as new route to Indian Ocean opened Reuters

Arakan Army Seeks to Build ‘Inclusive’ Administration in Rakhine State The Diplomat. Hang together, or hang separately.

How COVID-19’s third wave crashed over a delta village Frontier Myanmar

India

Covid and poverty: the struggles of India’s microfinance industry FT

The Koreas

(LEAD) S. Korea developing massive ballistic missile as powerful as tactical nuclear weapon Yonhap News

Inside the Business of BTS — And the Challenges Ahead Billboard

Victoria vs. NSW (1):

All it takes is one defector, and suddenly everybody’s “living with it,” whether they want to or not.

Victoria vs. NSW (2):

Afghanistan

Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal could’ve gone so differently (interview) Anand Gopal, MSNBC (dk). The deck: “The war in Afghanistan was far, far different from how it has been depicted in American media.” The deck should have been the headline. I don’t know what’s come over MSNBC; this is two good articles from them in one day. Oh well, statistics….

How The Disaster Of Guantánamo Foretold US Defeat In Afghanistan – OpEd Eurasia Review

Syraqistan

Yes, this is a parody account:

But I did have to check.

Once green, prehistoric Arabia drew early humans from Africa AP (dk).

UK/EU

Beer shortages at Wetherspoons after Brexit and Covid hit supply chains Metro UK

Jewish Chronicle’s libel payouts were a small price to pay for smearing Corbyn and the left Jonathan Cook

‘A tale of two pandemics’: How COVID divides could reshape European politics Euronews

Biden Administration

Texas abortion ban goes into effect after justices fail to act SCOTUSblog.

In a twist intended to make the law harder to challenge in court, the law does not rely on state officials to enforce the ban. Instead, the law tasks private individuals with bringing lawsuits against anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion. Anyone who brings a successful lawsuit can collect $10,000 or more from the person who is found to have violated the law. The unusual private-enforcement scheme distinguishes the Texas law from other states’ abortion bans

Letters of marque for law enforcement. What could go wrong? Here is the opinion (Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson). Here is a thread of extracts from it:

Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson looks even more shoddy than Bush v. Gore, where Scalia set a very high bar for shoddy.

The US supreme court is deciding more and more cases in a secretive ‘shadow docket’ Guardian (with Harvard Law Review link).

* * *

Biden declares emergency in California over Caldor fire Reuters

Health Care

White House seeks to speed potential Medicare dental expansion in face of expected delays WaPo. Kaiser’s view:

“This is a health equity issue, it’s an affordability issue, but it’s unrealistic to expect CMS to turn on a dime and implement a brand new benefit with a whole new category of providers within a year or even a year or two,” said Tricia Neuman, who leads the Kaiser Family Foundation’s work on Medicare policy.

Of course, the entire Medicare system was set up in a year, back in the days of steam-powered punchcard systems…

dealing with customers who are angry that we require masks and proof of vaccination Ask a Manager. Comments seem useful.

Class Warfare

Long live the labour shortages FT

Saved by the bankers (review) Prospect. Adam Tooze, Shutdown

Attack of the giant rodents or class war? Argentina’s rich riled by new neighbors Guardian\

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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248 comments

  1. Kevin

    “We can’t build our way out of the environmental crisis.”

    Of course not, but we will try. It’s the American way. Why fix the hole in the dam when you can make a fortune selling sandbags to the poor SOBs downstream….?

    1. Ian Perkins

      While I thoroughly agree with most of the article, summed up in its final sentence, “The overarching rule is this: if you want a greener world, resist the rising tide of concrete,” I wonder about “There is an almost perfect relationship between the proximity to a road and the number of forest fires.” Siberian forest fires in recent years have been the most significant in terms of CO2 release, yet most, to my knowledge, have occurred far from roads or human activity.

      1. vlade

        Road (as most people in the west understand them), yes. human activity – no.

        There’s a large scale illegal logging going on in Siberia, mostly supplying Chinese companies (who then supply US and to a lesser extent European) market.

      2. Kevin

        “There is an almost perfect relationship between the proximity to a road and the number of forest fires.”

        Yes, this can be seen in data from the U.S. Forest Service website, when you consider roads get humans in and out of the woods…
        “Nearly 85 percent* of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson.”

        1. barefoot charley

          Here in California this is no longer true. Our hideous fire seasons usually begin with dry-lightning storms. These events simply didn’t happen (in June!) before the global weirding of the last 10 years. One such event may include a thousand strikes, which may smolder for weeks before erupting. Then come unprecedented wind events . . .

          1. lance ringquist

            https://www.localfutures.org/globalizations-blowback/

            Globalization’s Blowback

            August 9, 2017 by Alex Jensen 4 Comments

            “Among other things, the scholars of the older study asked how much of the Chinese air pollution drifting to the Western US was occasioned specifically in the production of exports for world markets (including the top destination for Chinese manufactures, the US.)

            The answer? In 2006, up to 24% of sulfate concentrations over the western United States were generated in the Chinese production of goods for export to the US.[5] Applying these findings to the more recent study, it’s likely that a significant percentage of the Asian nitrogen oxides now choking the US West were also emitted in the production of goods destined for the US.

            In other words, it’s meaningless to speak of “Asian pollution” in this context. Though the pollution was emitted in Asia, it properly belongs to the country/ies on whose behalf and at whose behest it was produced.

            Even more accurately, the pollution finally belongs to the transnational corporations (TNCs) who are the real drivers and beneficiaries not only of offshoring, but also of insatiable consumerism through marketing and obsolescence.

            Economic globalization has enabled the manic scouring of the world by TNCs for the most ‘liberal’ (read: unregulated) environments in which to locate production facilities – the places where expenses can be minimized and profits maximized.

            Since the biggest drags on corporate profiteering come from taxes, environmental regulations, and decent labor protections and wages, the global relocations of TNCs have largely been towards countries where those costs are lowest, or absent altogether. ”

            https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurageiser/california-trees-dying-at-catastrophic-rate
            …
            we cannot recover till we reverse nafta billy clintons worst policy blunders in american history.

            1. drumlin woodchuckles

              Since the American majority never asked for this production to be outsourced to China, it might be better to say that it was the International Free Trade Conspiracy which occasions this pollution on behalf of the International Free Trade Conspiracy.

              And its supporters. Like Nancy Pelosi. And since a lot of the pollution coming from China is mercury in the coal smoke settling into the blue Pacific, I keep saying that Nancy Pelosi should eat as much Pacific tuna as possible, for her health.

              1. lance ringquist

                i predicted this in the 1990’s, any one with even one functioning brain cell could see this coming

                but i was ignored, then laughed at, then it got vicious and lying still abounds, but i won

                free trade has super charged climate change, and environmentalists are finally taking notice

                there is no way to enforce any rules to clean this up, just as there is no way to enforce democratic control under free trade

                Our report affirms that these retail giants’ dirty ocean shipping is fueling the climate crisis

                anyone who claims to be a environmentalist and a free trader is a “FRAUD”

                https://grist.org/climate/the-true-cost-of-shipping-junk-across-ocean-walmart-target/

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                What’s the true cost of shipping all your junk across the ocean?
                Walmart and other retail giants import millions of goods on polluting cargo ships.
                Collage: a cargo ship carrying a large package overflowing with items
                Grist / Sayan_Moongklang / Getty Images
                Maria Gallucci

                Published
                Jul 27, 2021
                Topic
                Climate
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                newsletter from Grist, available for a limited time.

                Take a look around your home and you’ll likely find plenty of goods that traveled by cargo ship to your doorstep. A set of IKEA plates made in China. A dresser full of pandemic-era loungewear, ordered on Target and made in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Tracing the impact on the environment from shipping any of these goods is incredibly tricky to do. The data — if you can find it — involves many companies, countries, and cargo carriers.

                Such obscurity makes it hard to count the full cost of our consumption. But a recent report helps unravel some of the mystery.

                Two environmental groups, Pacific Environment and Stand.earth, worked with prominent maritime researchers to track goods imported by the 15 largest retail giants in the United States. They then quantified the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants associated with those imports, usually ferried across the oceans on cargo ships running on dirty bunker fuel. In 2019, importing some 3.8 million shipping containers’ worth of cargo generated as much carbon dioxide emissions as three coal-fired power plants. These shipments also produced as much smog-forming nitrous oxide as 27.4 million cars and trucks do in a year, according to the report.

                “Our report affirms that these retail giants’ dirty ocean shipping is fueling the climate crisis,” said Madeline Rose, climate campaign director for Pacific Environment and the study’s lead author.

                Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

                The study is the first to trace retailers’ shipping-related emissions, and it used data from a separate, larger project to track the industry’s emissions that’s set to launch in October. The findings are likely just a snapshot of the true environmental toll: Researchers said they could only verify emissions for one-fifth of shipments by the 15 retailers, owing to a lack of data and the companies’ use of shell companies and franchises.

                The largest retail company in the United States, Walmart, was also the biggest polluter of the bunch. In 2019, Walmart imported enough goods to equal 893,000 shipping containers, resulting in some 3.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

                Maritime shipping is a crucial part of the global economy. About 80 percent of everything bought and sold travels on oil-burning, seafaring freighters at some point. All that shipping activity accounts for nearly 3 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a significant share of air pollution in coastal communities. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates the industry, has recently adopted measures to curb cargo ship emissions and reduce fuel consumption. But experts say stronger regulations and bigger investments are needed to steer the industry away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, and wind-harnessing devices.

                Another way to spur companies to action is through accounting — figuring out how many emissions are produced by which activity, from which company, at which location. In the world of ocean freight, a shipment of cargo can pass through many hands and even owners between the time it leaves a factory and reaches a warehouse on the other side of the planet. The goal of the new research, Rose said, is “to bring baseline environmental and public health accounting oversight to this incredibly murky issue.”

                1. drumlin woodchuckles

                  Understanding is slowly beginning to spread. All we can do to help keep the understanding spreading is to find non-boring ways to keep repeating this and re-repeating this and re-re-re repeat-peat-peating this to get understanding spreading and growing to the point of mobilizing an irresistible majority of Offended Americans to take command of the structures of government ( no more violently than necessary) and cancel every Free Trade Agreement and Treaty and Membership that America currently has.

                  Although I don’t know you personally, obviously, I am glad that you have survived long enough to see your enemies begin to face the proving of their wrongness in public. Hopefully you are taking care of your health enough that you can stay in the brainwar combat-space for many years to come.

                  Here is a saying which should give you comfort and inspiration. I read that it is an old Afghan saying and it might well be.

                  ” How delightful it is to behold the lifeless body of your enemy float by as you sit by the bank of the river.”

                  1. lance ringquist

                    we must enlighten. just as thomas paine and ben franklin, enlightened.

                    if we do not expose who did what to whom and why, the clinton/blair types will skate, and the damage will be permanent.

                    my health is poor, i am old, i cannot trust what i read, write, even see, but i am soldiering on, they must be made to pay.

                    if they skate, we might sink into a bloodbath all over the world.

                    that is one hell of a saying.

                    2. lance ringquist

                      i have to answer this myself because i cannot find a respond to you Daniel.

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_commission

                      what we need is more of the below, its history repeating itself, and it should be required reading for anyone to understand what was done to the world in the 1990’s, and if we do not do something about polices that never worked in the past, proven to have only enriched a few, to the detriment of man kind, but keep cropping up by those whom are very good at mental gymnastics, then history will repeat itself.

                      the best education was the percura commision,

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission

                      and the nuremberg war trials, which matched names and pictures, with their crimes against humanity.

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials

                      The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Committee

                      it worked, the ike administration is considered socialist compared to the clinton/obama abominations.

                      sunlight works. it will turn clinton/blair/obama types radioactive, that is no one will want to touch them.

                      if you shine a light on them, we get to see who their advisors were inside and outside of government, and their financial backers were.

        2. lordkoos

          Here in WA it is also no longer true that human-caused fires are the main reason for wildfires. Almost every fire here this year was caused by lightning, abetted by terribly dry conditions.

          1. Wukchumni

            Same here in Cali, one thing you haven’t heard diddily about this fire season is arsonist accusations, aside from the usual suspects, utilities.

    2. dftbs

      I don’t even think we’ll try. Despite what we may think of ourselves, as a people driven by ingenuity and “can do” spirit, our actions indicate a whole different picture, we are a society of complacency. Even when the majority of us can agree to want something, Med4All as a good example; we can’t even begin to figure out how to get it. Our imaginations don’t exist outside the channels of action which our institutions allow for. You see this over and over again, the evidence is all around us in our physically and morally decaying country. So we won’t build ourselves out of this, in NY we’ll get used to this sort of things. What will pass for solutions will be something like an elevated platform for basement garage parking spaces so your Tesla won’t get flooded when the drainage overflows.

      1. marcyincny

        “… we are a society of complacency. Even when the majority of us can agree to want something we can’t even begin to figure out how to get it…”

        The pandemic has been a horrifying example of this, the profound lack of imagination plus a prevalence of learned helplessness. “What can we do?” has become only another stupid rhetorical question.

      2. Jeremy Grimm

        Your use of language troubles me. I do not feel a part of the ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ you have so well and rightly lambasted in your comment … do you?

        1. dftbs

          Yes, unfortunately I am not what I “feel” but what I do; and what I do is express my frustrations via an internet message board. I am a member of a decaying culture and a citizen of a crumbling nation. If you aren’t, then I am happy for you and jealous of you.

          2. Kevin

            I agree with you dftbs.
            The “decay” you speak of doesn’t give a damn about whether any of us consider ourselves a “we”, a “them” or “none of the above”. We’ll all pay.

            1. tegnost

              We’ll all pay.

              No, we won’t.
              How much did bezos make on the pandemic?
              How did amazon stockholders do?
              How about exxon?
              How about pfizer?

              1. Kevin

                I wasn’t referencing the pandemic. The “social decay”. Some may make out better than others for a while, but all of us will pay in the end.

                (Traveling through northeast Michigan recently and i can tell you they are paying right now!)

                1. drumlin woodchuckles

                  No “we” won’t.

                  Firstly, there is no such thing as “we”.

                  There is Us and there is Them, and Them is against Us.

                  Us will pay and Them will profit. Unless Us can somehow create a movement to round up and exterminate Them and bury Them’s bodies in mass graves.

                  Then Us can begin to solve Us’s problems, once Them are out of the way to stop causing Us’s problems.

                  1. Skunk

                    It’s called corruption. It used to be curbed by laws, norms, etc. However, corruption has a built-in flaw. It doesn’t know how to moderate itself. A corrupt person can seldom just rake in the riches and then stop at a reasonable point. For this reason, usually corruption sows the seeds of its own demise. It may not be pitchforks and clubs, but possibly their analog in anti-trust laws, etc. In terms of norms, golden toilets have been all the rage this past decade, but public reaction to ostentatious displays may become quite different in an era of obvious climate change upheavals. “Them” will be the villains of the climate change saga.

          3. Eric Blair

            You guys are both right, dftbs & Jeremy. We, us, etc standing in for humanity but disregarding for a moment the fact the driving factor is a small power elite. Now pick a fight over a quibble and you’ve applied the divide-and-conquer playbook used so effectively by those same power elites.

            1. Dftbs

              Apologies to Jeremy and the other participants in the discussion, I didn’t want to appear combative, tone is hard to convey via posts.

              I do agree with Eric’s sentiment that it would be quite sad to quibble over where we fit in the edifice. But I do think despite our best intentions we are all part of the edifice.

              And I agree with Kevin that to the “decay”, or those in power or whatever, our self-identification is irrelevant so long as it’s confined to sentiment.

          4. Jeremy Grimm

            Wow! I did not intend to start a long thread on a quibble. I was remember the joke about the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto surrounded by Indians. And you have no reason to be jealous of me I have been on the same haycart for too many years. I do not just see crumbling and decay, I am very worried about the nearing cliff at the end of the ride as the horse begins to bolt.

        2. hunkerdown

          Me neither. It is so very long past time to see the royal “we” as the pompous arrogance it is. How dare some liberal treat me as an agent on par with the elites to whom THEY impose on me a burden of deference! If “we” need to do anything, it is to repudiate and desecrate the identity of the PMC as a class and force them into common substance with us whether they like it or not.

          1. tegnost

            How dare some liberal treat me as an agent on par with the elites to whom THEY impose on me a burden of deference!
            Totally…”we” can’t get m4a? So it’s our fault then?

        3. jr

          I do not include myself in that group and I am growing weary of being surrounded* by ill-informed people with dime store politics and an apparent death wish. In a world of competing information, when one is confronted with a pandemic, one takes the best precautions one can by one’s lights or one is a knuckle-dragging idiot. Ditto for not searching out all the information one can find. I know not everyone is on the same sheet of music but even allowing for the total chaos of recommendations out there, the working assumption always seems to be that this is all some big hassle that will go away soon. That this isn’t fair, somehow. Me? I’m buying cartridges for my 3M respirators.

          *I want to add that my partner has been great about all this and has really stepped up.

          1. Daniel LaRusso

            It’s hard for people working more than one job + travel + family + worries to “search out all the infomation they can find”. I think circumstances for everyone are different and that criticism of them is unfair.

      3. Carla

        @dftbs: Margaret Kimberley succinctly addresses your point in today’s Black Agenda Report link. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it yet.

        1. dftbs

          Yes, that column was almost dizzying in its effect. My brain was getting twisted by reading her list of all the contradictions we live under.

    3. Jean

      Rule 2 is that there’s an inherent bias towards selecting projects with the worst possible value for money.

      Rule 7…One of the simplest, cheapest and most effective green policies is to set aside existing motorway lanes for buses

      For your consideration I present you with the Marin Sonoma “smart train”, which violates both rules, and caused the abandonment of existing bus lines to create train ridership, and is nothing more than a land development schemed designed to enrich the construction political donation industry that controls California government.

      https://marinpost.org/blog/2018/8/24/an-economic-analysis-of-the-smart-train

      Do the math, number of riders versus the cost per rider.

  2. Eduardo

    “Joe Rogan says he has Covid, took widely discredited drug ivermectin”
    From the article:
    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month urged people to stop believing misinformation claiming the livestock treatment would help cure Covid-19.
    From the CDC:
    Last Updated: February 11, 2021 “There is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Results from adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.”
    CDC: Ivermectin.

    1. zagonostra

      I went to Google news to follow up on this story, not to get informed mind you, just to see how it is being reported. Nothing in the headlines or featured stories. So I typed “Joe Rogan’ in the search bar and got these gems.

      Daily Beast: Joe Rogan Says He Has COVID, Treated It With Deworming Medication

      NYT: Joe Rogan, a podcasting giant who has been dismissive of vaccination, has Covid

      1. zagonostra

        Interestingly, Joe Rogan is vaccinated. I didn’t know that, I’ve lost track of him since he moved to Spotify; last time I watched an episode he was very diffident on what he said and how he said it… I wonder which vax he received…

          1. zagonostra

            It’s in a site that I can’t reference here but it starts with a null number and you can find it there in today’s link. It may be wrong, which would be good to know.

        2. lyman alpha blob

          Says here his vax status in unknown – https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-joe-rogan-podcast-host-who-suggested-young-people-should-not-get-vaccine-tests-positive-12397289

          I’m a sporadic Rogan listener and he has had Bret Weinstein on his show in recent weeks to discuss ivermectin and censorship. He is a health nut and I’ve heard him stress the importance of a healthy immune system to reduce the effects of the rona, recommending vitamin D and other supplements if I remember right.

          He has said that he didn’t see why young healthy people should get vaccinated since the risk to them wasn’t high judging by the statistics, but he did walk that back after being pummeled once again the PMC goodthinker types who are always looking for a reason to discredit him. He then said young people should get the vaccine to protect other people who are more vulnerable. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56948665

          I may have been misreading some recent NC posts on the efficacy of the vaccine because the technical jargon does make my head hurt sometimes, but if I understood correctly it does sound like it isn’t really preventing the spread as advertised, and the benefit is reducing the chance of hospitalization and death for yourself, not other people (although it does still indirectly help others by potentially keeping a hospital bed open). So maybe Rogan wasn’t as off base as he was accused of. Big sports fan here and I’ve seen hundreds of athletes take a seat with the rona and not one that I’m aware of has come down with any problems that kept them from taking the field again as soon as they were eligible according to their league’s rules. One pitcher for the Red Sox caught it last year and opted out of the 2020 season and there was some concern at the time that he had developed permanent heart problems. Never saw anything definitive though and he’s been back pitching the whole 2021 season with no health issues. Unfortunately, if you’re a Sox fan though, pitching very poorly.

          1. lordkoos

            “He then said young people should get the vaccine to protect other people who are more vulnerable.”

            Now we find with Delta that fully vaccinated people can spread COVID to others just as effectively as the unvaccinated, and thanks to the CDC everyone around here was taking off their masks this summer.

            I don’t have strong opinions about Rogan either way — some of his podcasts seem pretty even-handed, he seems to be hated by the liberal class because he goes against the establishment narrative.

            1. Lambert Strether Post author

              > fully vaccinated people can spread COVID to others just as effectively as the unvaccinated

              I think what we know is that the viral load in the nose is the same. That is not identical to actually spreading. I don’t think there’s a study for that, but there are a lot of studies, so please correct me here.

      2. petal

        The morons on the local rock radio station morning show(owned by the former Clear Channel) this morning were totally knocking him for taking it, parroting the CDC, et al, talking points, and making fun of him for how he’s taking an animal dewormer, they never would, it’s dangerous, not approved, etc etc. It broadcasts to at least two states and also probably parts of ME and MA. They played a clip of Rogan talking about the timeline and how he was feeling great again by Wednesday-then knocked him.

        1. Jason Boxman

          Or how about Diphtheria antitoxin, which saved many lives. Right from the NIH, complete with a huge horse in the diagram.

          Next, researchers inject horses with the diphtheria toxin. As an immune response, the animals’ blood produces diphtheria antitoxin.

          (Bold mine.)

          And so this seems way worse, if IVM is painted as an animal treatment, because it literally originated from an animal. Or the flu vaccination today comes from chicken eggs!

          This nonsensical line on IVM and livestock is insane. But liberal Democrats surely haven’t distinguished themselves in their pandemic response, so I should not be surprised.

      2. Carolinian

        They are going to defenestrate Ivermectin out the Overton Window.

        Or bust.

        Apparently Rogan took several drugs and not just Ivermectin. Says he only felt bad for one day.

        1. petal

          Yes, Carolinian, it was quite the list. I was half asleep at the time but remember thinking “Damn, that might be going a little overboard, and it would nice if normal people could actually get all of that stuff, and how it’s nice to be loaded.”

          1. Nikkikat

            I know Petal, it reminded me of Trump getting everything that could possibly work thrown at him. Not much difference between these two rather egotistical personages. Rich people sure panic. They must really love themselves, because no else loves them.

        2. Ian Perkins

          You could be right about ivermectin’s imminent defenestration, but Oxford University is, or soon will be, conducting a large trial under its PRINCIPLE platform – the same platform that found dexamethasone effective over a year ago.

        3. Charger01

          He’s also an athlete with a closely scripted diet regime. All those factors couldn’t hurt his chances.

    3. Basil Pesto

      This actually came up in a group chat on FB today and I went pretty strongly to bat in defence in Ivermectin. This may surprise some here because I have hardly been unequivocal in my support for it in the past.

      For context: the group chat is people in their late 20s/early 30s. Career wise, they’re all what might be referred to as ‘PMC or PMC adjacent’. (I’ve mentioned before that I find the ‘PMC’ epithet useful to a point – mostly internet snark – but ultimately lazy, as all generalisations necessarily are). I think they more or less tend to generic wokeness (though I probably feel the same about that epithet too) albeit with smatterings of cynicism towards ‘woke capital’; not many Adolph Reed Jr readers in the group I don’t think.

      Somebody posted a horse drug meme that I found very funny. Then there was a less funny video that parodied Joe Rogan. This was shared by a fellow in the group who is most susceptible to generic neoliberal thinking – NYT consensus type stuff. He’s the most stridently pro-vax and anti-ivermectin, as far as I can tell. I nevertheless consider him a friend (there is no irony or snark intended in that statement).

      Because the harmfulness and stupidity of this “horse paste!!!11!!!1!!” meme shits me beyond compare, I felt compelled to speak up.

      I linked to the ‘The Story of Ivermectin’ YouTube video from Trinity College Dublin, made in 2012 (very hearty thanks to whomever shared that the other day; sorry I’ve forgotten who it was) declaimed that “the horse paste!!” received wisdom is bullshit and needs to stop, and explained that Ivermectin is actually pretty incredible and a sensationally useful human medicine. In the light, pleasantly socratic but still essentially serious back and forth that followed I explained:

      – I don’t know anything about medicine, but I’m pretty sure I know more about this topic than anyone else in the chat (thanks NC!), I don’t know if IVM helps or not, I hope it does, but a lot of what we’re being told about it is bullshit, and evidence on its efficacy is by no means settled. I said very early on in the discussion that if I were diagnosed with Covid, I would have no hesitation in requesting a prescription for Ivermectin.

      – I explained, at great risk of projecting smugness and pretentiousness, and acknowledging that risk myself before anyone else could point it out, that I have not made any such conclusions vis a vis covid lightly. I also outlined my excellent predictive record to date with regards to Covid (this is of course cheating; it is NC’s predictive record, not mine. I am perhaps starting to get involved in the predictions game all by myself with my thoughts on the developing situation in Australia, though. Oh, actually, I did have my own prediction: I reminded them that in March last year, I had predicted that a music festival we were all going to last April would be cancelled not just then, but in 2021 as well. This was at a time when people still felt pretty bullish about things probably blowing over in a few months/by the end of the year/not becoming a problem in Australia. My predictions came to pass.). I also described some mistakes I made. I explained that my having a good predictive record does not, of course, make Ivermectin good or bad; it merely means that I try to come to my conclusions (in the case of Ivermectin, a very modest non-conclusion!) as carefully and thoughtfully as possible, and I’ve done alright by that.

      – Despite an occasionally strident tone, I adopted minimal scolding. In this I think I drew some inspiration from IM Doc.

      – I also explained by way of pre-amble that recent events have been taking a toll on me generally, that I am sincerely just trying to help (I was! I am!), and that I felt very anxious about even bringing this up because I know tempers are frayed and the subject is fraught (implicit plea: so please go easy on me. Which they did. Which I was very grateful for. I am, alas, nowhere near as combative as our gracious hosts.) It is important to convey, imo, and is absolutely truthful, that I am not making these arguments merely for the sake of making and winning arguments on the internet, which is of no interest to me.

      Most others in the chat sat back and watched. Many made wisecracks throughout, not directed at either of us personally, that were much appreciated and funny. They’re all really nice people. I don’t know if all in the group agreed with me. The anti-ivm arguments got very few ‘reacts’. I got a few expressions of support. Lots of people that commented were very reasonable. People seemed genuinely interested in what I was telling them, even if they had been suspicious of Ivermectin in some degree beforehand, re: the history of Ivermectin and such. By the end, I think everyone was on the same page that trying to publicly discredit Ivermectin by calling it animal medicine was stupid, dishonest, and bad. Ultimately, neolib friend accepted that I was better informed on this topic than he was and that he would approach the subject with a more open mind in future. Music to my ears. He also said that he nevertheless thought that being sceptical of ivm because it was being adopted by anti-vaxers was a valid heuristic. I argued it wasn’t. I argued that such an heuristic might be valid if their advocacy for Ivermectin came out of the clear blue sky (we must always be cautious of quacks selling miracle cures during a pandemic after all), but it didn’t. The first tentative advocacy for exploration of IVM as covid treatment came from Monash University, a few kilometres away from where he and I live, from scientists who observed its efficacy against SARS2 in vitro. I also submitted that, if you want to play the heuristics game, the potential success of Ivermectin compromises the profit-making potential of the current vax manufacturers, who are indeed profiting very handsomely and stand to profit even more from ‘boosters’ (I think it was important to point this out – boosters are receiving a little bit more mainstream scepticism than the vaccines themselves ever did). I pointed out that this does not prove anything one way or the other about ivermectin either, but it is a much more valid heuristic than the one he presented, imo, keeping in mind as well that these are also, literally and uncontroversially, some of the most nefarious corporate entities in human history. I explained that I hadn’t brought this argument up until then because I didn’t want to seem like an anti-capitalist edgelord and detract from my main arguments thereby. The back-and-forth more or less ended there.

      Hopefully my relating this gives readers some hope, and provides some useful rhetorical strategies. That said, it was a lot of work, and I have more time on my hands to throw my energies at problems like this than most.

      1. jsn

        Thank you!

        I’ve had time in the past and found that dialogues like you’ve described have had lasting effects on harried but otherwise thoughtful people.

        The tax on thoughtful people’s time, of course, is the only tax neoliberalism enthusiastically endorses continually raising!

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > I find the ‘PMC’ epithet useful to a point – mostly internet snark – but ultimately lazy, as all generalisations necessarily are

        This sounds like a very useful conversation that wouldn’t have had the patience to have.

        I disagree that generalizations are “lazy.” It takes a good deal of effort to create one that bears some correspondence to reality (in this case, reality being a useful and proven set of expectations for how social relations will be enacted when encountering a member of that class. There are always exceptions, of course. as with any “fuzzy set”: individual traitors; regionalisms; training regimens; personal integrity). That doesn’t vitiate the generalization, however, any more than the generalization “Trigger is a horse” is vitiated by an encounter with “Black Beauty” or “Long Shot Kick Da Bucket“).

        For analytical background and the origin of the term “Professional Manager Class,” see Barbara Ehrenreich.

        When the social worker confronts her client, or the manager his worker, they do so in an “objectively antagonistic” relationship. The PMC are “salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.”

        One may disagree, but “lazy”? Not at all.[1]

        For a fine portrait of the PMC, see Thomas Frank, “Nor a Lender Be.:
        Regardless of who leads it, professional-class liberalism seems to be forever traveling on a quest for some place of greater righteousness. It is always engaged in a search for some subject of overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness with which it can identify itself, and under whose umbrella of virtue it can put across its self-interested class program.

        You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: this is not politics. It’s an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it’s highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with. But ultimately it’s a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you’ve got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison-building spree.

        Ouch. One may disagree. But “lazy”? No.

        One might argue, of course, that real laziness is a refusal to make the effort to build (useful) categories, rather as if we lived on the science fiction planet where there is only one of everything.

        NOTE [1] I’m not sure that Ehrenreich is fine-granted enough, in the same way that it’s useful to distinguish between “American Gentry” and international capital. Interfluidity has a brilliant discussion of the class (and existential) position of the PMC in “Predatory Precarity.”

        1. Basil Pesto

          Thanks, Lambert, for the thought provoking response.

          calling generalisations lazy was, perhaps, a lazy generalisation on my part ;) so I will withdraw from the ‘lazy’ adjective for the time being

          That said, while acknowledging that not all generalisations are lazy, and that it takes a lot of skill to build the foundations of some than others, I am wary of them in general (no pun intended). There is a fine line, in my opinion, between useful generalisation and harmful stereotype, cliché, idée recue, etc.

          I think also we need to differentiate analysis and description, which is what Ehrenreich does (very well, in that paragraph, imo) and the generalities that can then flow from the kind of work that Ehrenreich does when they’re disseminated, when they’re let loose in the ether, and their use eventually becomes hopelessly casual. The obvious example of this, which almost everyone at NC is familiar with, is when liberal democrats are called ‘left’.

          All of which is to say that in the example that I gave above, if people only knew my friends superficially based on their PMC class markers, or their generically mainstream ‘woke’ beliefs, or their sources of information – even granting that these things are slightly different in Melbourne than they are in, say, NYC – then they may have assumed – wrongly, in my opinion – that they could not be reasoned with on the topic of Ivermectin. I disagree, and I think I’ve shown that they can to some extent.

          But you’re also right, as well as a lot of time and (at the risk of sounding pompous) a lot of intellectual labour, it can require a lot of patience as well. This is a commodity in understandably limited supply, especially when you and Yves are a lot busier and more harried than I am.

    4. Maritimer

      Joe Rogan is such a moron just like these ignoramuses at the Tokyo Medical Associaition:

      “The chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, Haruo Ozaki, held a press conference this week announcing that the anti-parasite medicine Ivermectin seems to be effective at stopping COVID-19 and publicly recommending that all doctors in Japan immediately begin using Ivermectin to treat COVID.”

      https://www.eastonspectator.com/2021/08/28/breaking-japanese-medical-association-chairman-tells-doctors-to-prescribe-ivermectin-for-covid/

      Japan, of course, is a backward country where medical degrees are apparently available on the backs of ramen packages. Not like in the USA, USA, USA……….

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > “The chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, Haruo Ozaki, held a press conference

        Because I am not a trusting soul, I found what Ozaki actually said at his presser, and posted it in Links at 8/26:

        “Now is the time to use ivermectin,” said Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association (Google translate) Yomiuri Shimbun (original). Ozaki’s recommendation is for off-label use under “battlefield” conditions:

        [OSAKI:] I am aware that there are many papers that ivermectin is effective in the prevention and treatment of corona, mainly in Central and South America and Asia. There is no effective therapeutic drug, although it is necessary to deal with patients who develop it one after another. The vaccine is not in time. At such an imminent time, there is a paper that ivermectin is effective for corona, so it is a natural response for clinicians to try using it. Doctor-led clinical practice. That’s why many test papers came out.

        Yagisawa, Foster, Hanaki, and Ōmura make the same case in “Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19” (PDF), linked to at NC 6/5: “Doctor-led clinical practice.”

        I’ve seen the unqualified comments like yours circulate elsewhere. It’s really not helpful.

  3. FreeMarketApologist

    “…but it’s unrealistic to expect CMS to turn on a dime and implement a brand new benefit with a whole new category of providers within a year or even a year or two,” said Tricia Neuman, who leads the Kaiser Family Foundation’s work on Medicare policy.”

    Given Ms. Neuman’s employment history, she certainly should know, as she has been part of the process of implementing a cumbersome, unwieldy, and inequitable health care system in this country. It’s unclear that’s she’s anything but a creature of the machine regarding providing healthcare. She got the system she helped build.


    https://www.kff.org/person/tricia-neuman/

    1. JTMcPhee

      Maybe “She forced most of us to live under the system she helped build.” Betting she has “eximious” Access To Health Care ™ herself…

    2. TBellT

      I do have to agree with her though that absent some additional funds and changes in rules it’s gonna be hard for CMS to implement quickly.

      There’s been a concerted effort over the last three decades to do so much government work via contractor. This keeps departments like CMS at the bare minimum required on staff while still probably ultimately ending up at a higher cost. It’s part of the larger neoliberal project and by design it makes changes like this a harder lift than they need to be.

  4. zagonostra

    >Texas district closes schools after covid kills two teachers in one week

    It is unclear whether either teacher was vaccinated

    I predicate that if the teachers were not vaccinated then these deaths will be used to justify mandating CV vaccines, if teachers were vaccinated it will still be used to justify mandating CV vaccines anyways. I hope they report out once it is determined.

    1. CoryP

      It’s pretty awful. The article makes it clear that not only were the teachers in the same district they were at the same Junior High.. which seems worse to me from a statistical sense. I’d be pretty freaked out.

      1. Wukchumni

        The biggest hero i’m aware of is my buddy who was a 7th grade science teacher for 30 years, that is until he retired last year after Covid came calling. There must be so many like him who called it quits.

    2. Bacon

      This is just cut from the same cloth as the ever-present detail of whether a cyclist murdered by a motorist was wearing a helmet and thus mostly to blame for their own death.

      1. Tom Doak

        Exactly. All of these teacher-COVID stories are written from the perspective of parents worried that their kids might be exposed to COVID, and never from the perspective of teachers that inevitably some of the parents are sending infected kids to school who might potentially kill their teacher.

        Of course, the prevailing stories just happen to be the perspective that encourages vaccine mandates for teachers. But, this is Texas, there aren’t going to be vaccine mandates there.

        1. Mikel

          And nobody seems to give a rat’s butt who those children have to go home to and what conditions they may have.

        2. Amfortas the hippie

          “…inevitably some of the parents are sending infected kids to school who might potentially kill their teacher.”

          this is one of those forever headaches in public ed.
          due to lack of affordable childcare,lack of paid time off to take care of a sick kid, down right neglectful parents,etc…parents are all but encouraged to send their oozing, infectious darlin’s to school.
          school nurse is wife’s friend…been real helpful since cancer diagnosis, as in “stay home today…lots of puking going on”.
          she has complained about this for as long as i’ve known her…kids coming to school with the squirts and spews, with high fever, with what is obviously the flu…and all that’s before covid.
          most times, she must wait until the kid goes, or is sent by teacher, to her office…whereupon she calls the parents to come get their typhoid marys and black death billys.
          rational public policy would go a long way in fixing this…but, as y’all say, it’s Texas…rational is not something we do.

            1. Amfortas the hippie

              aye!
              on one of our numerous trips back from san antone this summer, as we’re passing “The Dominion”(super rich neighborhood, where one can see George Strait’s house from I10)…wife muses:”i wonder if they have gettogethers like we do…do they cook…?”
              and me, in deadpan:” yes…they barbeque the children of the poor…it’s why there’s always smoke over there…and why there’s no street urchins in san antonio”.

              took wife, mom, and both boys all of 5 minutes to digest that, and realise that i was being an ass.

        1. Ahimsa

          Also.. “A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta”
          https://www.science.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-blunts-does-not-defeat-delta

          I keep wondering about the apparent discrepancy in data coming out of UK and compared to Israel/USA – despite similar vaccination rates, UK reporting much lower rates of hospitalisation & deaths.

          Is AstraZenca so much better against Delta than Pfizer/Biontech or Moderna? Or could it be linked to the UK vaccination rollout having much longer periods (12 weeks iirc) between shots?

          See todays Links: “Reactogenicity and immunogenicity after a late second dose or a third dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 in the UK”
          https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01699-8/fulltext

    4. Mikel

      Also note that there is no follow up on the status of any people in those teachers’ household.

      Left to assume they lived alone or not care if they did or not.

      1. Pookah Harvey

        I have heard the argument that Merck as developer of Ivermectin would greatly profit from an antiCovid usage therefore their statement:
        “We do not believe that the data available support the safety and efficacy of ivermectin beyond the doses and populations indicated in the regulatory agency-approved prescribing information.”

        is proof that Ivemectin is not viable for antiCovid treatment or prevention.

        The problem is that Merck let the patent drop in 1996 and it is now a generic with several manufacturers. Merck could never jack up the price. I guess I shouldn’t say never. They can always use the tried and true method of paying off other manufacturers to stop production. Of course they then may have PR problems if the MSM decided to do their job.

        1. IM Doc

          Yes – please do not assume that ivermectin will always be forever cheap. They could play all kinds of games.

          A few examples.

          Colchicine – a drug for gout and other inflammatory conditions, in some form has been around since the time of Henry VIII. When I was a young doctor in the 1990s, a 2 L bottle of pills could be had for a few dollars. Then the drug companies and FDA did their magic – and now it is no longer available in the previous format – and the new and only available stuff – COLCRYS – costs 400-1000 dollars for a few days.

          The same exact game has been played with multiple asthma inhalers, insulin, BP meds, and multiple forms of chemotherapy. All used to be dirt cheap and very effective as generics – now are literally “break the bank” expensive. And there is no end in sight. Insulin in particular is so morally galling because those who discovered it in the 1920s, Banting & Best, basically gave it to the world for a pittance – not the blockbuster amounts Big Pharma gets today. Multiple actual dewormers and parasite drugs are on the list to have this same thing done and there are multiple old antibiotics that I understand are under the gun. The most famous parasite medicine incident and the hideous jack-up in price involved shenanigans by one Martin Shkreli.

          I can see them easily doing this same game with something like Ivermectin. Just FYI – sources have told me that at least some of the antiviral COVID drugs under investigation by Big Pharma have exactly the same theorized activity on the virus as does ivermectin. They are not exact analogs but they do exactly the same thing. It really is a total joke – and is so emblematic of the total regulatory capture of our once proud CDC FDA and NIH. As I have stated repeatedly, once this whole thing blows over, my profession is going to have a big deep hole to dig itself out of.

          2. Cuibono

            it is of course possible that the goal is that we not dig our way out. I hear talk of Ai replacing us for the plebes of course

  6. JohnA

    Re We Need to Start Traveling Again. Here’s How. Tony Blair, John Bell, David B. Agus NYT. “We” “need” Tony Blair not to travel anywhere, at any time, for any reason.

    Actually, we need Blair to travel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be tried for war crimes. Just the one journey, he could even go by train to be a bit more environment friendly.

      1. hunkerdown

        Why don’t several thousand Britons just grab him by his sorry flesh and bones that elites pretend they are not, and drag him there? It’s time to start desecrating elites and ignoring their “proper” ty. They won’t learn if we just keep respecting them.

        1. Count Zero

          Blair is never more than a few feet from an armed guard. So nobody will be dragging him anywhere. Last time I walked by his multi-million pound house in Connaught Square there were two uniformed policemen at his front door, each holding a nasty-looking machine gun.

          1. Vandemonian

            Aha! So that’s whose front door it was. Walked past it in 2014 when I was on holiday in London (remember world travel as a holiday option?).

            Quipped to the officers “I didn’t know Supersoakers came in black” and they had the decency to chuckle.

            Machine gun toting policemen used to be an aberration in the UK, rather than just dystopian.

        1. Gravity Falls

          Yes, the guys over at Chapo have been making falconry-related jokes, usually as a dig on the Saudi royals for quite some time.

    2. Judith

      Certain falcons and other birds are at risk, as described on eBird:

      https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000803210#What-is-a-

      What is a “Sensitive Species”?

      Some bird species face risks from humans of capture, targeted killing, or significant targeted disturbance. Open-access data can be a risk for these birds that are targeted for exploitation. eBird data output is restricted to protect these “Sensitive Species” while still allowing important data about them to be entered into eBird.

      The exploitation of wild birds for captive trade is the most significant risk for many bird species. Despite laws that protect wild birds and regulate international trade in threatened animals (see Birdlife International summary of bird trade and CITES), illegal trade remains a major threat to many species.

      With these dangers to wild birds in mind, Sensitive Species listings allow eBirders to submit specific location data for at-risk species in a way that supports science and conservation, without risk of causing harm to the birds

      How are Sensitive Species defined?

      eBird consults with our local partners worldwide in order to develop our list of Sensitive Species. Sensitive Species in eBird conform to these guidelines:

      Sensitive Species are formally recommended by a partner or published source, and rationale for the listing is stored at eBird.

      Sensitive Species in eBird are those for which demonstrable harm could occur from public display of site-level records, including (but not limited to): 1) targeted capture for the cage bird trade; 2) targeted hunting; 3) targeted disturbance of nests, roosts, or individual birds from birdwatchers or photographers. Species that are rare but are not under pressure from targeted human exploitation or disturbance generally are not considered Sensitive.

      In many, but not all, cases, a Sensitive Species has formal listing as an Endangered or Threatened species either on a local priority list or by the IUCN (http://www.iucnredlist.org/).

      Sensitive Species are implemented primarily at the global scale, but regional and seasonal treatments are applied in some cases.

      1. Skunk

        The 2013 documentary Emptying the Skies is worth a view. In Southern Europe, some activists go to remarkable lengths to try to save disappearing songbirds. They call themselves the Committee Against Bird Slaughter. Unfortunately, when you see the effort required to save a few birds, you realize that the efforts probably won’t ultimately succeed.

  8. Ian Perkins

    Beer shortages at Wetherspoons after Brexit and Covid hit supply chains

    Cutting commentary from the Mash:
    https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/when-i-find-out-whos-done-this-to-my-pubs-ill-fking-kill-them-says-tim-martin-20210902211672
    (Martin was a prominent supporter of Brexit, and has said his ‘company had worked hard to comply with “ever-changing government guidelines” such as curfews and mask-wearing yet they appeared to have “no real basis in common sense or science”.’)

  9. haywood

    “ 15 million Covid vaccine doses thrown away in the U.S. since March, new data shows “

    Assuming, what, 500million doses throughout the country? That’s 3% waste. Is that particularly bad?

    1. Carla

      With 80 percent of the world unvaccinated because of the greed, selfishness and profligacy of the rich world, I would say yes, 3% waste is bad.

      Break the patents on the vaccines, and AFTER the rest of the world has scaled up production and distribution, the rich world may be able to afford to waste vaccine.

  10. Eureka Springs

    But officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have said it could take in the range of three to five years to implement new dental benefits, six people said.

    Name these officials. Fire them all.
    Imagine a new Covid strain suddenly appeared which attacked and caused decay and rot in the skull. Yes, we would all have to sacrifice for the economy but heads would roll if six people said we can get to it in a few years.

  11. zagonostra

    >Chris Hedges: The revengeful suffering orchestrated by the American empire on Afghans will be of Biblical proportions

    Very good essay/summary of U.S. withdrawal from Afghan and what most likely will be the U.S.’s response, good analogy with Rome and Hannibal.

    Like Cato the Censor, the US military and intelligence agencies are, if history is any guide, at this moment planning to destabilize Afghanistan by funding, arming, and backing any militia, warlord or terrorist organization willing to strike at the Taliban

    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/533640-american-empire-afghans-suffering/

    1. Ian Perkins

      I haven’t read Hedges’ article, but the US might find it harder to arm any Afghan resistance than it did with the Mujaheddin in the 80s, as none of Afghanistan’s neighbours seem interested in destabilising the country.

      1. JTMcPhee

        Modulo parts of the Pakistan government? Given the priors, and that unfortunate slopping over of the Pashto population across the northern Afghan/Pak “borderland?”

      2. MRLost

        … none of Afghanistan’s neighbors seem interested in destabilising the country.

        Then the bribes will just need to be bigger. The CIA, NSA have lots of money for bribes.

        1. Procopius

          The last 20 years in Afghanistan should have driven home the lesson that who accepts a bribe need not fulfill his promise. Heck, Ngo Dinh Diem demonstrated that, and the lesson was announced loudly year after year, yet Washington never found a way to stop paying him. Say, has anybody heard what ever became of that $169 MILLION that Ghali stuffed in his helicopter on his way out of Afghanistan?

    2. jonboinAR

      That’s the (family blog) last thing this country needs to be doing with regards to Afghanistan, that, or applying sanctions! (Family blog), leave those poor people alone, (family blog)-it!

  12. juneau

    CDC/MMWR publication of research describing people who never get antibodies after Covid-19: Thank you for including this research publication in today’s links. It is very validating for those of us who are being told they didn’t have Covid because their antibodies weren’t detected on current testing. Some of whom are quite ill to this day. It is a small study (72 subjects) but 36/72 PCR positive patients had no detectable antibodies, which is a large sized effect.

    1. Dean

      “… but 36/72 PCR positive patients had no detectable antibodies, which is a large sized effect.”

      This could be true but in looking at the PCR cycle threshold values the mean for those with antibodies was 24 while seronegative mean was 36 (IQR 34-77!). With a Ct of 36,or above (77 I just don’t understand) I am not sure these individuals were even infected and if so had very low viral loads.

      Perhaps others with more familiarity with real-time PCR can comment.

    2. Lee

      Don’t antibodies always wane after infection or vaccination with, it is hoped, future resistance relying on memory B and T cells? In the latest TWIV video (at about 35 minutes in) they seem to be saying that the measurable presence of antibodies is not perfectly indicative of resistance and immunity as there are other immune mechanisms in play. I say “seem to say” because my understanding of the topic is limited.

      FWIW,I had a bear of a respiratory infection for weeks in Jan-Feb 2020 that I strongly suspect was Covid-19. But in May I tested seronegative for Covid antibodies.

  13. Tom Stone

    If you are watching the California wildfires keep in mind that we are entering what used to be our Wildfire season, when the winds shift from an on shore flow to an offshore flow
    Santa Anna Winds in the South, Diablo winds in N California with wind speeds frequently exceeding 50 MPH.
    Early forecasts call for La Nina conditions…
    A dry winter.
    If we’re lucky we’ll only lose a few thousand more homes and see a Million Acres more burned by November.
    The fuel is there and all it takes is one spark.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I remember that you were forced to evacuate from your home the last time fire season came around. Is a slit trench an option for where you live? So if you can’t evacuate and your home may be unsafe, you can drop yourself into that trench to avoid the radiant heat.

      1. Wukchumni

        If you’re serious about protection from a marauding wildfire, invest in a fire shelter tent to protect yourself…

        I have one with me in my car @ all times, living in a high fire risk area with only 1 way in and out~

        A fire shelter is a safety device of last resort used by wildland firefighters when trapped by wildfires. While such a shelter cannot withstand sustained contact with flames, it can protect a firefighter’s life in a short-lived grass fire. Furthermore, it is designed to reflect radiant heat, protect against convective heat, and trap breathable air — most firefighters’ deaths are from inhaling hot gases — so that firefighters can survive in non-burning areas surrounded by intense fire for more than an hour.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_shelter

        1. Nce

          USFS firefighters call them “shake and bake” shelters. If the fire is extremely hot you will still fry, but the hope is that the fire will pass over you quickly. I was in an AD crew in the ’90’s, and I remember my crew leader’s remark that she hoped that she would never need to deploy one, as she was a hypochondriac.

      2. Tara

        in 2017 people used their pools this way when they could not evacuate out of suburban Santa Rosa- they suffered massive lung damage from the heat of the fire as it rolled over their property with them on it. I evacuated in 2019. In 2020 there was no where to evacuate to. This is California dreaming.

  14. Hank Linderman

    It seems to me that the Texas abortion law provides for some extreme mischief, like accusing someone – anyone! – of aiding an abortion, with little chance of jeopardy since the accuser isn’t responsible for the accused’s legal fees. So, citizens could flood the courts with hundreds of thousands of cases accusing R legislators, church and corporate leaders of aiding abortions. It might be difficult to get much of anything done, much less go after the intended targets of the law…

    Best…H

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        aye…my first thought, too.
        when i was in high school, i ran a de facto underground railroad to planned parenthood, south of downtown houston.
        started with taking a friend…and then she told her friends that i could be trusted, and away we went.
        probably drove 40-50 young women down there over my junior and senior years(ptb never found out, to my knowledge, altho this could have contributed to my later pariahood.)
        most of these young women were the daughters of righty lay preacher/ businessmen types(exurbs of north houston in the 80’s…there were few lefty/libs…and they took their own daughters, and didn’t need me,lol)
        like with rentboys…there’s a large opportunity for dirty pool, here….if we could just figure out how to connect the dots. Based on that experience, i’d venture that most antiabortion loudmouths are not really all that antiabortion, in principal, when the rubber breaks….hypocrisy runs deep in those circles.

      2. neo-realist

        Speaking of not playing hardball, there’s been nothing but crickets from NOW, from feminists, Planned Parenthood. Groups that would be most horrified by the Texas law have been silent. No strategies or any kind of moves to be made.

      3. drumlin woodchuckles

        Perhaps other groups and movements, either Team Dem adjacent or not Team Dem adjacent, could do that very thing.

        Also, and going only partway that far, could legal offense-defense movements be set up to countersue such sue-ers for defamation, libel, slander, frivolous lawsuit, etc. in return?

        1. Amfortas the hippie

          “frivolous lawsuits” used to be a mainstay of texas republicans.
          “idiot spilled coffee on herself and got rich”
          etc.
          now,it’s policy.

    2. Dr. John Carpenter

      Definetly. I’ve already seen some “concerned” anti-abortion group set up a 1-800 hotline where people could report those aiding and abetting abortions. Far be it from me to suggest a person hammer that number with fraudulent reports.

      Using the courts would be even better, but alas, Yves is correct.

      1. hunkerdown

        The Texas Reps just gave the left an unaccountable tool of lawfare with which to kneecap Dem notables. Y’all down there should git on it before the Dem establishment uses it as their #KHive initiation rite.

        1. Tom Doak

          I think I saw Beto driving somebody the other day.

          But, damn, it took me a minute to remember his name. That balloon deflated quickly!

      2. Henry Moon Pie

        The next thing I expect are ads along the following lines:

        For just $19 a month, less than 70 cents a day, you can save a little baby in Texas. Call now and we’ll send you a 8 by 10 color glossy photo of the baby YOU saved! But wait, be among the first 100 callers to commit your $19 per month, and we’ll also send you this fashionable t-shirt (emblazoned with “I Save Babies”) free of charge.

        Lots of opportunity for grift in that Texas law.

          1. Henry Moon Pie

            And sadly, Broadway Joe might be available too. It’s good he’s still around, you understand, just it’s sad to see him in those hustlers’ ads.

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        aye. my mom has had a chaste tree and pennyroyal as part of the landscape for as long as i can remember, for the eventual anti-Roe outlawing.
        it’s her idea of quiet, patient feminism.
        of course, every dry cleaner i’ve ever known about(i don’t go to those places, of course,lol) gives away clothes hangers…are they complicit, as well?
        meanwhile, nothing gets done on the Grid, and nothing ever happens with expanding Medicaid, and i expect that the next time i go to town(later today) everyone will be armed to the teeth.
        https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/us/texas-open-carry-laws/index.html

        and i can’t wait for the next election to roll around…texas lege has empowered “poll watchers” to be themselves…ie: harass people, now while carrying sidearms, with no recourse left to the election officials(who, in my county, are all rabid righties(seemingly a job prerequisite), these days, with an equal number of very timid and frightened(also a prerequisite) dems.)

    4. Glossolalia

      You could accuse an anti-abortion group of aiding and abetting abortions by fighting to outlaw it therefor making people seek one out before its outlawed.

    5. marym

      History predicts that Democrats won’t do much of anything. Meanwhile, Republican legislatures are already passing laws that facilitate intimidation and legal jeopardy of people voting, administering elections, and teaching about racial history. Enabling civil suits by anyone who feels like suing would seem like a logical authoritarian anti-working class next step.

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        way down in that excellent thread is this:
        “Any man who *intends* to have intercourse with a woman would count. Sue all legislators in texas and depose them on all lewd thoughts they’ve had for the last four years. Let their lawyers cry “Unconstitutionally vague.””

        so, the possibilities are endless.
        “cry havoc”, and all.
        too bad all the Blue Check orgs are so nice and anodyne, and don’t do dirty tricks.
        this cries out for dirty tricks…and i’m beginning to think that the texasgop, in their zeal and hubris, may have left the door wide open.
        make them hurt.
        i’m “abetting abortion”, by being for the Right to Choose, after all.
        let them sue me.
        nothings in my name for this very reason….so i’m free to stir shit up.

    7. Peter VE

      I immediately thought that a few thousand lawsuits targeting the Texas DOT and each town’s and county’s road departments would be a useful tool. After all, if there were no public roads, no one could get to a clinic. Also, Uber and Lyft should make excellent targets, with the added benefit of speeding their demise.

    8. Gareth

      In theory, you could overwhelm the courts this way, but there are some stumbling blocks. Plaintiffs is such cases would have to make sworn statements or testify in the trial, which exposes the plaintiff to perjury charges. The plaintiff’s attorney and anyone else deemed to be involved could be charged with subornation of perjury. While a falsely accused defendant could not recover costs under SB8, the law does not preclude suing the plaintiff afterwards for defamation, libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, etc. I would imagine that the legislature would recognize the need to fine tune the law if it became apparent that the increase in civil actions was creating an unworkable backlog. On the other hand, they could double-down and create a new set of special abortion courts in which to offload the cases. After all, attorneys stand to make a bundle from the growth in civil cases, and most legislators are attorneys.

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        “In theory, you could overwhelm the courts this way, but there are some stumbling blocks. ”

        yeah, it’s called “tort reform”, and the texas gop have been hot and bothered about it for decades.
        mainly so poor folks in Chambers county can’t easily sue Big Chemical for poisoning the soils and water.

  15. David

    The title of the (very useful) Gopal interview is a bit misleading, because they only way things could have “gone differently,” as he admits, is if a completely different policy had been pursued from the beginning. The Afghan state that was constructed was what’s known in the trade as “donor funded”, like a number in Africa, where donors directly contributed to the state budget. The statistic that was always quoted to me was that the Afghan National Army, with a planned strength of 175,000, required a budget that was greater, by itself, than the revenues of the Afghan state. In turn, this was because the structure of the Army and its concept of operations, were directly patterned after the US. Thus donor funding, and once this stopped, the state would simply cease to exist. And this was not just the US, by the way, it was a whole group of other actors doing the funding.

    The government that was installed by the international community was, for all that it may have lacked credibility with the people, the one that was recognised internationally. As Gopal says, you can’t go around negotiating behind the back of the recognised government without causing major political problems, so the talks that needed to take place – with the Taliban – couldn’t happen, at least not officially. And the Taliban had no reason to talk to a state that only existed because of donor funding.

    The most interesting point he makes is that the international community was obsessed with the views of a small number of urban, largely English-speaking, Afghans, and paid no attention to the rural population where the Taliban had its base. But to have done so would have been to discover that ordinary Afghans have opinions that were not at all like ours, and that would have been unacceptable.

    So once a decision was taken (and again the US was far from the only actor) to create a state dependent on donor funding, to privilege the views of elites over the views of ordinary people, to create an Army which the state could not afford and to carry on a war against the Taliban which could not be won, failure was always inevitable. The tragedy is it took so long.

  16. Carolinian

    US foreign policy as zombie apocalypse?

    Lined up on the runway at the Kabul airport Monday night were the five last C-17s to leave the country after a chaotic and deadly airlift that marked the end of America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war. In the final hours, there were no more rocket-defense systems to protect them on the runway, and no one in the airport control center to direct them out.

    “It just looked apocalyptic,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Braden Coleman, who was in charge of monitoring the outside of his aircraft for artillery fire and other threats. “It looked like one of those zombie movies where all the airplanes had been destroyed, their doors were open, the wheels were broken. There was a plane that was burned all the way. You could see the cockpit was there, and the whole rest of the plane looked like the skeleton of a fish.”

    https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-09-02/us-crew-describes-afghanistan-departure-kabul-airport-apocalyptic

    There’s a Gerard Butler movie called Greenland about an comet about to hit the earth. Selected people are told to converge on Warner Robbins airbase in Georgia for a flight to Greenland, the only place likely to survive. The disaster as the mobs converge on, yes, C 17s, could be a vivid foreshadowing of last month’s events.

  17. Ghost in the Machine

    WV Gov. Justice reports significant increases in fully vaccinated residents getting COVID, being hospitalized and dying WBOY

    In the Salt Lake Tribune the COVID numbers are reported this way:

    “In the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahns were 5.1 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than vaccinated people, according to a UDOH analysis. The unvaccinated were also six times more likely to be hospitalized, and 5.1 times more likely to test positive for the coronavirus.“

    https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/08/31/rolling-day-average-new/

    Now, if my math is correct, if unvaccinated are 5.1 times as likely to die as the vaccinated then, about 16.4% of deaths are vaccinated ( 16.4 + 5.1(16.4) ~ 100%). About 48.3 % of Utah’s total population is vaccinated. This does not seem very good to me.

    1. Skip Intro

      As long as testing the vaccinated is officially discouraged, the baseline for the likelihood of testing positive is badly skewed.

      1. Ghost in the Machine

        Is that still a problem if you just look at deaths and know that about 50% of the state is vaccinated? Of course, vaccination rates are higher in older groups so there will be a bias there. I guess you have to break it down by age as well.

      1. Ian Perkins

        He needn’t be in too much of a hurry – The project’s developers are currently preparing a trial period … “Negotiations with the authorities will take place during the autumn at the same time as vaccine production begins. We hope we can start testing the vaccine at the turn of the year”, Saksela said.

        But looking to the longer term, it sounds hopeful.

  19. The Rev Kev

    ‘Dr Lizzie Skinner
    I will never ever forget, as long as I live, that @GladysB and @ScottMorrisonMP forced Australia to #LiveWithCOVID against our will, at vaccination levels <30%. It is unforgivable. The people of Australia, especially Victoria & #COVIDZero states worked hard to deserve better.'

    I too will never forgive or forget what was done just so some people could get ‘their’ economy back again and their trips overseas. Today, seven people died in NSW so supposing that this was going to be the daily average of deaths daily with all the States as they get infected, you are talking about 2,500 deaths annually of people who never had to die. When I go to vote next year and a Coalition flunkie tries to hand me their how-to-vote papers, I will inform them loudly that I will never vote for a party that deliberately chose to kill thousands annually. Small comfort.

    What enrages me is the assumptions that were made with this plan to make this virus endemic here that you could drive a Mack truck through. The deliberate ignoring of all the warning signs from countries like Israel about ‘breakthrough’ cases, the certainty of more novel mutations and all the rest of it. But what really disgust me is the enablers of this madcap scheme of Scotty & Gladys – the medical establishment and the media.

    Time and again (and a coupla times today) there have been professors going on TV saying that we have to live with the virus. People with high rankings in the medical establishment. Today somebody poisoned themselves with Ivermectin so these professors were saying that it is extremely dangerous to take and has no benefits whatsoever in treating this Coronavirus. Lying b******. They even mentioned the Y’all call from the CDC. Do they believe what they say? This happened because they do not want people to take Ivermectin forcing them to take matters into their own hands and for all we know this may have been one of the secret protocols of the deal to buy those vaccines.

    But you can see a coordinated media campaign in operation. A new words is being introduced into the lexicon of what we talk about and that word is ‘endemic.’ They went on about this several times on the news and even provided a helpful chart showing all the diseases that are endemic to Australia to normalize it. So in future they will say ‘It’s just the flu, mate’ and they have repeatedly said that they will treat it like the flu. They say a booster shot in one shoulder and a flu shot in the other in future. And they said that it would only be at a small cost to the country. So our PMC class is doing what it only knows how to do. So they will make this virus endemic to Oz and then ‘manage’ it. Sorry for the long post.

    1. Carolinian

      Being a typical isolated American I confess to not having followed your situation all that closely. But you are saying–what?–that Australia can or should maintain zero Covid while the rest of the world does not?

      Here in the US there have been pockets of low Covid and yet it seems that many of those places are now taking it on the chin much more so than places like NY that got hit hard early. How much of what has been going on for the last 18 months is merely the illusion of control?

      So don’t be sorry. Some of us would like to hear more.

      1. The Rev Kev

        My own thoughts are that as the pandemic has a few more years to run, that a precautionary approach to it would be best – and especially in light of the fact that it is rapidly evolving. Last year it went after older people but this year it is going after younger people which includes children. We have no idea what further characteristics will evolve. So yes, we could have stayed at zero covid and waited for a sterilizing vaccine to have been developed. We are only now becoming aware how flawed and limited the first generation of vaccines are and the fact that it allows this virus to evolve further in vaccinated people. Instead, our government got bored and businesses demanded the 2019 economy back again so it’s a matter now of let ‘er rip.

        1. Foy

          Exactly Rev, I’m with you there, the Gladys has blown it up for everyone. The contrast next year between our overwhelmed health systems and Western Australia’s if the keep the closed borders will be difficult to explain away.

          1. The Rev Kev

            It’s going to get better than that. Scotty has to call an election before next May I think that it is. Because of the lockdowns, the economy is now going into a recession which may last some time. I think that that is why he wants so desperately to call off ALL lockdowns. To get people out and spending so that the recession is called off early and just accept the resulting body-count as collateral damage. He does not want to call an election in the middle of a recession after all.

            I know that Western Australia’s healthcare system does not have the slack to cope with a pandemic. They are stretched annually with just flu season so is probably why their Premier is refusing to budge. But you are right. If the eastern States have mass deaths & overwhelmed healthcare systems while WA is going its merry way, it will not be a good look for him going into the polls.

    2. Wukchumni

      Gladys & Scotty are mythical bowing league members which I think plays a huge part in why they’ve given up, and besides everybody knows this life isn’t worth living compared to being in the ether above us, fitted for wings.

    3. Vandemonian

      I share your righteous anger, Rev, and wish that I had once voted Liberal so that I could swear to never do it again.

      But one small thing: your comment that “…somebody poisoned themselves with Ivermectin…” doesn’t reflect my reading of the reports. I believe it’s more accurate to say that “ somebody poisoned themselves by taking a range of COVID-19 folk remedies, and Ivermectin was in the mix”.

      Ivermectin seems to be a fairly safe drug. Pierre Kory claims that there have only ever been two deaths resulting from its use.

        1. Vandemonian

          Don’t you believe that for one minute, Basil. No affordable private rentals to be had for love nor money, and public housing is as bad or worse

          https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/tas-calls-for-homeless-crisis-to-be-addressed/100334216

          The AirBNB lark took a lot of cheap family homes off the rental market and turned them into mini Sheratons, and we also had a flood of North Island tree changers who realised they could sell their fibro shack and buy a mini-mansion down here. Many of them only started noticing the poor traffic flow, lack of jobs and low wages after they’d made the move.

          Then we had COVID, and another flood of incomers, many of them Taswegians coming home. I work with a local charity focused on feeding homeless people, and four or five times a month we’re asked by the hospital or Corrections to provide accommodation odation for ‘difficult’ people leaving their care. The only thing we can offer these folk is a bit of food, some warm clothing and a swag (for non-Australians, that’s a one man tent and a sleeping bag).

      2. The Rev Kev

        I should have added a /sarc tag Vandemonian. That was the spin that the media was putting on that guy who overdosed on those tablets. As in regular doses it is quite safe but it seems that the government does not want people to have access to it at all.

  20. zagonostra

    >California/Newsom recall

    Why has Soros donated to-date $1M to stopping recall? I don’t follow too closely the demonization of Soros, though it is curious that DemocracyNow! went downhill after an infusion of money from him. Why is he putting so much money into this? There has to be some specific interest.

    2. Darthbobber

      There need not be a specific objective. Just having unspecified “favors owed” by the Democratic machine suffices. A million for Soros is like fifty bucks for me, if that.

  21. Carla

    I am relieved to see that Margaret Kimberley is upholding the incredibly high standards of the late Glen Ford and the late Bruce Dixon at Black Agenda Report. Thank you, Ms. Kimberley. Everything you say in “Why the U.S. Still Suffers from Covid” is spot on, not to mention beautifully stated. And thank you, Lambert, for posting.

    Time for me to make another donation to BAR!

    1. Amfortas the hippie

      aye. Bruce and Glen were two of my favorite thinkers…and Margaret’s podcast is one of the tiny few i ever listen to(loud at the bar, when i’m piddling around fixing things).
      I’m a white dude(really sort of pinkish-brown), but the political/philosophical stance at BAR is more closely aligned with my own than just about any other.(which pretty much makes their case, as to the tool of power artificiality of the whole woke/race thing)
      Adolph Reed, too.

    2. .human

      Danny Haiphong’s “War is a Racist Enterprise” is also well written, hard hitting and on point. I thought I was reading Glen Ford. Thank deities for these talented voices.

  23. Pat

    Just as the news that Pfizer is testing an oral antiviral drug is the shoe dropping on all the hysterical, and deeply deceptive, Ivermectin coverage, is there anybody but me now waiting for the shoe to drop on the Social Security and by extension Medicare going broke much earlier than expected stories of the last few days? Sure there was the report, but you would expect that to be treated the same as the other bad Covid screwed us economic news.

    NPR

    I could include Fox, Forbes, Business Insider, etc but…

    Let’s just say that despite surprising me on Afghanistan, I do not entirely trust a Biden led Democratic Party to address the non crisis. Whatever is coming I figure to be profitable for a few and very costly for the majority of the people in reduced access and benefits.

    1. Michael

      Maybe due to the estimated 6.2% increase in benefits starting Jan 1st.
      Next up: Chained CPI Demodoggie Style

    2. Nikkikat

      Pat, I think the Dems are going for an end run on two tracks. The cost of living increase and the possible and I use possible because I will believe it when I see it, but possible expansion of dental, glasses etc. Both parties will put all the misleading info and lies on repeat to give people the impression that all of these things just cannot be done. They will win.

  24. antidlc

    https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-clinical-trials-b0c42976be5df46214581247ce5fdf58
    Dated Sept. 1:

    AMA, APhA, ASHP Call for Immediate End to Prescribing, Dispensing, and Use of Ivermectin to Prevent or Treat COVID-19 Outside Clinical Trials

    The American Pharmacists Association, the American Medical Association and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists today released the following joint statement:

    The American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association, and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists strongly oppose the ordering, prescribing, or dispensing of ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial.

    1. Amfortas the hippie

      just picked up my cat from the vet(went in for routine shots, way late…attacked the nurse, and had to be quarantined for a week..his own dern fault for being a dick)…and almost bought some off the shelf ivermectin for sheep.
      just to have on hand(long shelf life)
      i am not…NOT… advocating horse paste!
      but i’d rather have it than not…in the same way as i went, after stepdad died, and rummaged around in his medical cabinet and
      ran off with all the wound care stuff, latex
      gloves, etc….as well as the same way i keep a perennial bed of papaver somniferum…just in case.
      it has been apparent to me forever that we’re on our own, when ya get right down to it.
      and when you’re close to the edge, it’s prudent to accept that state of affairs as read.

    2. Gregorio

      The whole ivermectin demonization in the US is completely unwarranted. I live in Mexico, and doctors here routinely prescribe it to treat covid19, as well as being available over the counter in pharmacies for anyone who wants it, yet there are no reports of anyone getting sick or dying from ivermectin. It’s one thing to discourage people from taking something that can potentially cause serious harm, but altogether something else to expend so much energy on something that, when taken at recommended dosages, the primary risk is a possibility that it may be ineffective. It’s akin to having a media campaign to discourage people from taking vitamin C when they feel like they’re coming down with a cold.

    3. Jeremy Grimm

      I wonder if the few remaining independent Pharmacists in the u.s. are onboard with the American Pharmacists Association’s stance on Ivermectin and its cheeky rationale copied from the CDC.

      1. lordkoos

        At least one pharmacist in our town is on board with IVM – he not only fills prescriptions for it, he’s also been giving it to his health-compromised aged mother for some months will no ill effects.

  25. Hana M

    These reports of breakthrough infections/hospitalizations (as in the WV story) are deeply unhelpful. All such reports should also provide data stratified by age and co-morbidities. What I’m hearing locally is that almost all vaccinated patients hospitalized with Covid are also basically very sick with underlying problems such as obesity and diabetes.

    1. hunkerdown

      Unhelpful to whom, and why should I not deny them their interests for prioritizing themselves over people like me, to whom such posts are in fact helpful? Personal Pfizer holdings are not a public interest. But if you nationalize the company, we can talk about a jab.

    2. IM Doc

      The vaccinated patients in the hospital with co-morbitities and age is largely true – at least where I am – However – that too is slowly changing. Admitting more and more vaccinated patients who are baseline healthy – and just really sick. And in the outpatient side of my practice – where people do not need to be admitted, it is now unusual that I see any unvaccinated patients – just being inundated with vaccinated patients. Many but not most of these people are quite ill – a lesser number nearing hospitalization status. We are still seeing large numbers of vaccinated patients infected all at once at superspreader events. Luncheons, church services, parties, etc. These events almost always require vaccination as a ticket to admission – and you can see how well that helps. That whole concept of vaccination proof, etc – is just such a joke it is not even funny anymore. So many people getting sick at these events where they feel they are safe because everyone is “vaccinated”. It makes politicians like deBlasio, et al look like total morons in my eyes. There are also lots of health care and personal service workers – like waiters and bartenders. It is really overwhelming the ability of my staff to deal with them all. And the majority of these patients have no co-morbidities and are not necessarily old.

      I have learned to just not focus on the numbers that the various dashboards and news outlets are providing – I have to deal day by day with what is going on in front of me. I no longer even have time to think about numbers that are not consistent with my reality going on here on the ground.

      1. zagonostra

        “I have learned to just not focus on the numbers that the various dashboards and news outlets are providing” – sounds like you know the territory better than most The “Map is not the Territory” (Gregory Bateson) – but then again, damn if the reporting of the numbers isn’t creating the hyper-reality we live in (Jean Baudrillard.)

      2. Dave in Austin

        I’M Doc’s comments on vaccinated superspreader events like luncheons and church services reminds me that the viral loaddelkivered is probably very important. For healthy vaccinated people, the viral load needed to induce a Covid case is probably high, but indoor events with no masks in poorly ventilated spaces with loud talking, laughter and especially singing are probably a great petri dish for Covid.

        Does IM Doc or other careful observers who actually see the cases have any anecdotal information on the sort of vaccinated superspreader events that are giving the vaccinated young Covid? I’d like information that might either support or refute my hypothesis. I treat my guesses and hypotheses like clay pigeons; I launch them with the expectation that many will be shot out of the sky. Start shooting.

        1. Hana M

          One example is the Provincetown MA outbreak that followed “Bear Week” and the 4th of July celebrations. The report in the CDC’s MMWR really didn’t do justice to the Bear Week events. For that I had to turn to the Gay press where I found several interesting first person accounts of the scene. There were about 60,000 gay guys having a great time at parties and bars and since the weather was awful (raining like crazy) everything moved indoors to crushes in basements, etc.Lots of group house parties. Folks from all over the country. Naturally there was plenty of dancing, shouting, singing, and kissing and otherwise making out. An estimated 30+% of the attendees were HIV positive. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated Covid cases occurred with several hospitalizations. It kind of amazed me that it wasn’t worse.

          https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm

          1. HotFlash

            HIV positive, that may be it. From the NIH website:

            HIV medicines prevent HIV from multiplying (making copies of itself), which reduces the amount of HIV in the body (called the viral load). Having less HIV in the body gives the immune system a chance to recover and produce more CD4 cells. Even though there is still some HIV in the body, the immune system is strong enough to fight off infections and certain HIV-related cancers.

      3. Hana M

        Thank you, IM Doc. As always, you’ve provided a helpful update. I’m definitely going to be a bit more careful. The only data that I look at these days are the charts from the Massachusetts Water Authority that tracks Cov-2 readings from Boston’s wastewater treatment facility. Still running fairly high.

    3. Mikel

      “All such reports should also provide data stratified by age and co-morbidities. ”

      And jobs/occupations.

      1. Carolinian

        The media don’t want to be accused of “fat shaming.”

        And yes fat shaming is a bad thing except when talking about it might save people’s lives.

      2. ambrit

        Do it properly. A full slate; race, age, gender, socio-economic status, vaccination status (including length of time since vaccinated,) etc.
        This would require America to have a fully functioning medical establishment, for all.
        We need this data. We need to see just how the Dreaded Pathogen mutates over time. Since we are at the beginning of a long term Terran human adaptive crisis, we should not adopt an attitude of Exceptionalism.
        As it is now, we are supplying the Hubris and the Dreaded Pathogen is the Nemesis.

  26. Mikel

    “If the finance does to China what it did to us, we should win the next war with China easily. Kidding!”

    I agree. No kidding.

  27. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Lambert.

    With regard to Jonathan Cook’s article about the Jewish Chronicle, the quartet of hacks who fronted the acquisition of the paper did so on the understanding that the publication would continue to be used for such purposes, whether profitable or otherwise. It’s the same with GB News, Andrew Neil’s new plaything. A profit is a bonus, but not the primary objective.

    One should not feel sorry for Corbyn. He refused to fight for himself and was happy to throw socialists under the bus in order to placate Zionists and others on the right.

    1. Carolinian

      The late Alexander Cockburn was on C-SPAN once and a caller accused him of antisemitism and he quite aggressively browbeat the caller and said he refused to accept the accusation.

      Of course Corbyn was not an alt publication journalist and less able to do this. But surely you are right that obvious bullies have to be challenged and not placated.

  28. drsteve0

    Presuming ‘Attack of the giant rodents…’ followed by a an antidote glamour shot of the giganticalist of rodents was purposeful. Can’t read the grauniad article as they toss me off as soon as I go on their site. My conscience is kickin’ in, need to become a contributor to NC and the water cooler, particularly since the wife and I no longer give Jack Squat to NPR’s pledge drives. Used to plunck out a fair chunk a change to ‘em.

  29. jr

    My neighborhood was hit fairly hard last night. Our living room floor is a sponge. I bumped into the super on the way out the door and when I told her this, she smiled and showed me a video of a bathroom around the corner where the toilet was burbling up water and feces. She had been up since 4 A.M. dealing with that. I wished her a good morning and gave her a half-hug, she said she would reach out. Which is good because I discovered immediately after talking with her that the basement is flooded, including the storage area. Weee.

      1. ambrit

        Wow! I have never seen an “Error 1011” before.
        We lived through the floods of Katrina, so, we’ll take your word for it.
        Welcome to the “New World Climate Order.”

        1. Ian Perkins

          The link works fine for me; I’ve just rechecked. It shows a hospital ward, with mothers and newborn babies, around six inches deep in muddy water.

          1. jr

            I got an error message as well. That sounds horrible, poor dolls. It’s not just here in NYC though. My partner’s junior colleague upstate sent her video of the lake that flooded her front yard. There are fish swimming, a heron hunting off in one corner, and a water snake sunning itself; the water lays over a yard with a hose, sidewalk, and gardening equipment clearly visible underneath. It’s a kid’s dream, surreal. The young lady narrating it is giggly with undertones of fear. Thank goodness they don’t have a basement.

          1. HotFlash

            Me too. It says:

            Error 1011 Ray ID: 68893492ee5b53e3 • 2021-09-02 19:39:36 UTC
            Access denied
            What happened?

            The owner of this website (www.khmertimeskh.com) does not allow hotlinking to that resource (/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/26078.jpg).

  30. Daryl

    > Victoria vs. NSW

    One wonders if there will ever be a legal case against political entities that decided to be covid reservoirs and mutation aceelerants.

    1. Basil Pesto

      You should have to meet a very high burden of proof, being able to show something like malice aforethought, as opposed to hopeless Panglossery and finger-crossing, because I think the precedent of retrospectively prosecuting bad leaders for bad leadership is not a great one in general.

      (I hold Berejiklian and Morrison in unfathomably low regard)

      1. Daryl

        Certainly I agree, and I doubt such action would succeed since the same entities responsible for determining liability would also be the ones who have made such poor decisions. I just can’t imagine how enraged I would be if I were in a country like Vietnam that successfully contained covid and is now being hammered by it because the West couldn’t get their act together.

        1. JTMcPhee

          The Revenge of the Round-Eyes…”F—- You, Victor Charlie and NVA, we got your sorry a$$, didn’t we? Don’t mess with the West! (And the Agent Orange and unexploded munitions are on the house!)”

  31. JTMcPhee

    Maybe why there is no way to avoid the “herd immunity” faux end game, the Vietnam example: “ Beer crates and broken chairs: Barricades divide up locked-down Hanoi ” https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/vietnam-hanoi-covid-19-lockdown-restrictions-makeshift-barricades-2151741

    “ Across the country more than 11,000 people have died.

    “No strangers can access our community,” said Nguyen Ha Van, a 45-year-old volunteer guarding a barricade consisting of one steel barrier, a wooden table and a long wooden stick.

    “It’s good we set up barriers like this … it means our area is free of the virus,” Ha told AFP.

    Vu Manh Dung, a delivery driver, admitted everyone knew ways around the barricades but said he “strongly supports” the system.

    “Of course there are ways in … but we have to abide by the regulations.”

  32. Jason Boxman

    So uncounted COVID deaths are about to get bigger, as word gets around that the bills be coming: Covid Medical Bills Are About to Get Bigger. Although perhaps not; The healthcare system in the US is not known for its altruism, so did anyone ever believe COVID care was ever less expensive?

    Earlier in the pandemic, most major health insurers voluntarily waived costs associated with a Covid treatment. Patients didn’t have to pay their normal co-payments or deductibles for emergency room visits or hospital stays.

    Most Covid tests were free, too.

    Most. Ha.

    Rebecca Riley recently received a $200 bill from a laboratory with an unfamiliar name. When she called to inquire about the charge, she learned it was a fee for a Covid test. Her son, a high school student, is regularly tested at his Los Angeles-area high school.

    “I didn’t expect to get any bills,” she said. “I feel stupid, but I’d heard the tests were free.”

    Unfortunately.

    Because insurers are not required to cover that regular testing, some patients have already received testing bills as high as $200 for routine screenings, according to documents that patients have submitted to a New York Times project tracking the costs of Covid testing and treatment. If you’ve received a bill, you can submit it here.

    Will we increasingly under test as a result? That’s a great way to loose sight of what’s happening in the real world, although as the CDC as shown, the Biden administration doesn’t seem to want any actionable facts anyway. We’ll achieve Trump’s desire to test less by a different route.

    Some of the highest bills, however, will probably involve Covid patients who need extensive hospital care now that most insurers no longer fully cover those bills. Seventy-two percent of large health plans are no longer making Covid treatment free for patients, a recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

    So that’s swell! Could be a driver of uncounted COVID deaths, but maybe not. When you’re told care for something is free in the US, do you believe it?

    1. Jeremy Grimm

      Perhaps the Corona flu can make a contribution to the national GDP to add to its many CARES packages, further helping to offset its earlier misdemeanors against the GDP and the interests of Big Money./s

        1. Ian Perkins

          It’s November this year. (It was supposed to happen last year, but COVID put paid to that.) I expect they plan that far ahead in terms of crucial stuff like booking hotels and so on.

    2. Eclair

      NYC government does seem to be in a somewhat chaotic state. My grandson (recent college grad, working from home since June, for the office of an NYC elected official) just texted me that he had received simultaneous e-mails from work: one telling him that he did not have to report to work in person, the other, that he must report to work in person full time, starting on the 13th. I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation.

  34. hunkerdown

    Sometimes, moral panics over ritual purity can be usefully fomented against real rather than imaginary enemies. Here, China deploys Marxism’s residual Protestantism against Western bourgeois culture and values, thank that god for that much:

    Chinese authorities on Thursday enhanced management of entertainment programs and related personnel, calling for boycotts against individuals with records of illegal or immoral behaviors, as well as sky-high payments for stars and abnormal appreciation of niangpao, or feminine men.
    […]
    “The moves not only target chaos on the surface, but the gray industrial chain and capital behind the chaos. In other words, it is not only aimed at rectifying platforms, agencies or fanquan (fan circle), but radically reforming the industry,” Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based entertainment industry observer, told the Global Times on Thursday.

    Why, it’s almost as if they don’t want their own national BTS! ZOMG neo-isolationism!!!!!!!!!

  35. Wukchumni

    Got take a hike dept: Eagle Lake

    You never know what kind of day we’re gonna get, with a few wildfires south of us and a couple goliath ones well north of us, but the winds were in our favor yesterday blowing all the smoke out towards the east and it was crystal clear with unlimited visibility.

    Eagle Lake in Mineral King is somewhat shallow @ around 10 feet deep and the drought and heatdomes have done a number on it with only 2 feet deep puddles remaining rendering half of it an ersatz pond of sorts, with 80% of it dried out.

    Granite boulders & rocks that haven’t seen the light of day ever were exposed and gunmetal grey in appearance compared to their white-ish landlubber opposites on the ‘shore’ and beyond. The feel was that of when the ocean recedes just before a tsunami, although it wasn’t as if we were in any danger of a giant wave overcoming us, it being bone dry.

    We had a ‘perfect game’ in that during our 7 mile hike, saw not another soul on the trail, my first such feat alternating feet in a few years time.

    https://modernhiker.com/hike/hike-eagle-lake-in-sequoia-national-park/

    1. Wukchumni

      p.s.

      Press release from NPS in Sequoia NP, this is really unusual behavior by our black bears here but not surprising. Berries and other sources of food are largely non-existent because of the drought, not to mention scant sources of running water, boo-boo is desperate for pic-a-nic baskets.
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      Bears

      There have been significant problems with bears in the parks this summer caused by visitors improperly managing food. Bears that have obtained food rewards in the past become increasingly aggressive. Bears have been breaking into parked vehicles to get the food stored inside, and boldly approaching picnickers, who sometimes are intimidated or surprised into abandoning their food. NPS staff recently euthanized a bear after it instigated a string of increasingly aggressive and destructive incidents in the Giant Forest area.

      At this time of year, bears are active in all areas of the parks, as well as the surrounding communities. Wherever you park your car, ensure that your food is stored in metal food storage locker (“bear box”), never leave food unattended (out of arm’s reach), and if a bear approaches you and your food, haze it aggressively. Gather people together, shout, throw stones, etc. Please keep all food and garbage out of restrooms, and throw trash away in metal trash cans with latching lids. If trash receptacles are full, please pack your trash out with you. NPS staff will confiscate unattended coolers.

      1. ambrit

        A little something for the obstreperous ursines.
        Not your usual ‘backup’ gun.
        See (Woke warning. Non-PC item): https://ruger.com/products/superRedhawkAlaskan/specSheets/5302.html
        However, look at the price (the last item on the list.) This is for people who can afford to safari. That isn’t very many of us.
        I guess that “bear spray” is it for the rest of us.
        See: https://www.cleverhiker.com/blog/does-bear-spray-really-work#:~:text=Studies%20show%20bear%20spray%20is,guns%20and%2084%25%20for%20handguns.&text=It%20is%20a%20violation%20of,defense%20during%20an%20imminent%20attack.
        Still, with my luck, I’ll be in the Ten Percent cohort, for a very short period of time.
        Stay safe! Happy trails!

        1. Wukchumni

          Obama could’ve vetoed the bill that allows the public to bring hand cannons into* our National Parks in 2010, but as usual he caved.

          *curiously, if you were to discharge them in the confines of a National Park, you’ll be subject to arrest.

  38. Wukchumni

    ‘Abbottoir’

    Texas district closes schools after covid kills two teachers in one week SF Gate (MB). “‘This closure will also allow time for deep cleaning and sanitizing of all CISD facilities,’ [Superintendent Wesley Holt] said in an email to parents.” Hygiene theatre continues, CDC, good job.

  39. Jeff W

    Looks like my August 30 post on the fragility of the New York Subway system was fortuitously timed.

    Speaking of which, a couple of days ago, I sent you a partial transcript (a bit more than the first half) of Mike Duncan’s “3.2-The Broken Regime” because you mentioned in that post that you hate making transcripts. Check your email.

  40. John Beech

    Resign because you don’t like what the boss tells you to do? I’m OK with that! That’s what you do when you know better than the boss. Go find another job!

    Me? I’m thinking the boss is getting ahead of this – for once – so good on President Biden for the decision to go forward with the 3rd booster. Not like the scientists have been hitting 1.0000, right?

    Of course, WHO would rather we inoculate the world, and if it were up to me we’d be building capacity expressly to help do just that – for free to the poor parts, especially, and maybe just free for everybody since big-pharma has grown so darn fat off of us – but in the meantime, the responsibility of American government is to first take care of Americans.

  41. Synoia

    We Need to Start Traveling Again. Here’s How. Tony Blair, John Bell, David B. Agus NYT. “We” “need” Tony Blair not to travel anywhere, at any time, for any reason.

    He can go to Hell at any time. Let us be slightly non-restrictive.

  42. John Beech

    I’ve heard the name Joe Rogan but have no clue who he is. An educated guess is he’s a right-wing nutter because of the rejoicing and ‘I told you so’ character of the comments, but jeez, folks, strikes me anybody actively wishing ill on others has their own set of issues to be concerned with.

    Lastly, I recall IM Doc sharing data indicating Ivermectin being effective in his practice, enough so I investigate where to source it and appropriate dosing, so it’s not like there’s not ‘some’ data indicating maybe there’s a grain of truth regarding its use, right? And unless I’ve totaly misunderstood, there’s admiration for IM Doc. So in light of Ivermectin being routinely prescribed as a course of treatment for scabies, what’s the harm, anyway? So why the hate?

    1. jonboinAR

      Almost everyone agrees that Rogan is an interesting, thoughtful interviewer. Hard to say if he could be classified as right wing, or not. I think he’d have a case to argue vehemently that he’s unbiased. He’s being demonized at the moment for, inadvertently or no, or implicitly or whatever, promoting “horse paste”. With the US politically polarized as intensely as it is and Ivermectin being the current 30 second flashpoint, about 50% of the population immediately would like to see him crucified, with prejudice.

    2. outside observer

      Rogan is not a right-winger. He was a Bernie Sanders supporter, and also Tulsi Gabbard fan I think. He’s hard to pin down (probably like most of us), his views are pretty reasonable IMO – perhaps that’s why he is so threatening.

    3. Foy

      He is absolutely not a right wing nutter. In the Democrat primaries, Joe Rogan, who always says ‘I’m an ex MMA fighter and therefore I’m the last person any one should go to for an opinion’, thought Bernie Sanders was the best choice for the Democratic Primary candidate. That is not exactly the definition of a right wing nutter.

      He’s a great interviewer because he does long form interviews and lets his subjects speak and doesn’t interrupt often.

      If you are interested in details of all the Covid19 Ivermectin studies and trials I suggest you try this site https://c19ivermectin.com/

      One possible reason for the Ivermectin hate is that all the vaccines were issued under Emergency Use Authorisation which would fall away if there was an alternate approved treatement

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > One possible reason for the Ivermectin hate is that all the vaccines were issued under Emergency Use Authorisation which would fall away if there was an alternate approved treatement

        Now, not Pfizer.

    1. ambrit

      I love the “messaging” here; “potential” effects.
      Now with the effective banning of off label prescriptions for “the drug that cannot be named,” the true nature of the goals of the Medical Industrial Establishment cannot be denied, nor ignored.
      I am now effectively in the camp of those who have been preaching for a long time that “Big” private anything is the enemy of “the People.”
      Stay safe, hull down.

      1. petal

        I’m shocked to see funding being put up, didn’t think it would happen. Better late than never, I guess. Agree with you, ambrit, about the “messaging”, and “potential”. I want to walk away from this world-I’ve had enough lately. Disgusted by the slime everywhere and in everything. Total capture.

        1. ambrit

          I hear you. You’ve been slammed recently and need a rest. We all do, but the Establishment, as all Establishments do, will not rest until submission to the precepts of the Elite Consensus is total and universal.
          I am more and more appreciating the basic sensibility of the old Hippy Mantra: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
          It even has it’s own song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5woFxnekqo8

  45. Wukchumni

    In honor of Labor Day, I heard Texas will award a cash prize for any baby delivered this coming Monday.

    1. ambrit

      Then next year, as proposed by Dr. Swift, the yearlings will be bar-b-qued at the Annual Texas State Labor Day Picnic. Who needs loaves and fishes when you’ve got the Texas State Legislature?

  46. flora

    Off topic: This is year 2021 a.d., 80 years (sans a few months) since the US entry into WWII.

    I recommend 2 films about that era.

    First: Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934/5 documentary movie “Triumph of the Will”. ~2 hours.

    Second: Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 documentary movie “The Sorrow and the Pity”. In French with subtitles. Very long. Worth watching in all. ~ over 4 hours

    Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more things change, the more they remain the same.)

    1. Jeremy Grimm

      The “Triumph of Will” is a tremendous masterpiece of propaganda — beautifully done. I would add Elem Klimov’s “Come and See” to your list.

      1. ambrit

        Agree, but, “Come and See” is the epitome of an “adult” film. It’s not just sexual images that young children should be shielded from.
        I remember first seeing “Triumph of the Will” at university sitting in on a class on advertising. The unnatural and perverted union of propaganda and advertising is one of those hidden “secrets” of the ‘moderne’ age. Bernays has a lot to answer for. I’m pretty certain that, if there is any truth to the religions of our world, Bernays is eternally toiling away in Sheol.

    2. ambrit

      Then, if I may, a rereading of Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem.”
      Our government is full of Eichmanns today.

  47. jonboinAR

    I’m pretty sure one doesn’t wish to see a skunk doing a handstand. I saw one dash from in front of a car just ahead of me once. It’s spray nailed my car directly. My brother’s and my eyes were watering so badly I had to pull over.

  49. drumlin woodchuckles

    About that igniting third rail . . . is it electrolyzing the water, and is the hydrogen then burning as fast as it forms?

  50. juno mas

    RE: Once ‘green’ Arabia

    This article supports my recent observation about Gobekli tepe archeological site (recent link).

    The site is mischaractized in the recent link. See the site: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572/multiple=1&unique_number=2237

    Gobekli tepe is in northern Arabia (now Turkey). If you zoom into the map link so that the modern reservoir to the northeast of Gobekli is recognizable, you can see the topography likely supported a wetter climate 11,000 years ago and Gobekli tepe was likely part of a river course . It appears the lake topography (to the south) has dried up and is now used for agriculture.

    Gobekli was an excavated site. Likely from flood deposited sediment.

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