Sunday, March 14, 2021
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Coronavirus cases have been in headlong retreat in the UK and USA since peaking in early January, weeks before vaccination levels became comparable to present day European levels where cases continue to rise
Besides that, new cases also fell dramatically from early January in both Europe and South America before ticking up again after February 15th. Both regions were then and still remain far behind vaccination levels in the UK and USA. There must be some other explanation apart from vaccines why cases fell so precipitously.
Damned if I know what it is, save for "seasonality". But it sure as hell ain't vaccines. The US hit the lackluster present day European vaccination levels in the first week of February, and the UK did the same a week earlier, yet daily new confirmed cases were already in free-fall in both.
As vaccinations had nothing to do with the drop in cases in the US, UK, Europe and South America in January, it is likewise doubtful their relative paucity in Europe and South America now has anything to do with the uptick in cases since Feb 15.
Psychiatry is such a joke when it's the patient who determines the diagnosis of major depression
Imagine your dentist doing that for a cavity.
Dentist: "Do you feel a hole in your tooth with your tongue?"
Patient: "Yes".
Dentist: "How large is it?"
Patient: "Feels really big".
Dentist: "Well, I'm afraid that one's got to come out".
For the study, published in JAMA Network Open, the team looked data from eight waves of surveys conducted between June 2020 and January 2021.
Respondents were narrowed down to 3,904 individuals who said they had been infected with COVID-19 in the past but had since recovered.
They were asked to rank how severe their illness was and if they had any persistent symptoms since testing negative.
All of the participants filled out the Patient Health Questionnaire–9 (PHQ-9), which is a diagnostic instrument used to diagnose mood disorders such as depression.
Patients are asked about their mood or behavior over the last two weeks including whether they've had 'little interest or pleasure in doing things' or have been 'feeling down, depressed, or hopeless.'
Those filling out the survey can choose one of the following 'not at all,' 'several days,' 'more than half the days,' or 'nearly every day,' which are scored from zero to three.
On a scale of zero to 27, people who scored 10 or greater are considered to be moderately or severely depressed.
Of the participants, 2,046, or 52.4 percent, scored high enough to be considered to have symptoms of major depression.
Friday, March 12, 2021
Climate Update for KGRR: February 2021
Climate Update for KGRR: February 2021
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Death toll after COVID vaccines climbs to 1,637, CDC denies link
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Examples of US States back-filling death data from COVID-19 in recent days
Friday, March 5, 2021
The list of adverse reactions to Pfizer's COVID vaccine in the US makes for interesting reading
Some reactions to Pfizer's COVID vaccine reported to US VAERS for 14,649 events through 2/26:
Blindness: 20
Blurry vision: 122
Chest pain: 361
Chest discomfort: 485
Cardiac arrest: 70
Thrombosis/stroke: 30
Spontaneous abortion: 30
Facial paralysis: 199
Death: 475
Sense losses: touch (671), smell (129), taste (134)
Swelling: lymphatic (362), lips (182), throat (160), face (203), tongue (181), peripheral (206)
Severe itching: 787
Rash: 781
Hives/urticaria: 572
Tingling sensations: 873
Oral tingling: 418
Joint pain: 760
Tight throat: 315
Anaphylactic reaction: 143
Fever: 2,018
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
Full-time employment in the US in February 2021 continues to SUCK
47.5% of the civilian US non-institutional population had full-time jobs in February 2021. The average level in 2020 was 47.3%.
Missing full-time in February relative to the 2019 average of 50.4% is 7.5 million.
Relative to the all-time high in 2000 at 53.6%, missing full-time is a whopping 15.87 million.
Thursday, March 4, 2021
Monday, March 1, 2021
US COVID-19 update through Feb 2021
Daily new cases have dropped dramatically in February 2021, but still average 85,863 per day and remain higher than for any month before last November when the country was still in a fit of hysteria about the pandemic.
Daily new deaths had their third worst month in February 2021 and are still higher than in April last.
Hospitalizations have dropped dramatically in February to 48,871 on Saturday 2/27. Peak Saturday level was January 9th at 130,781. The Saturday peak last summer occurred on 7/25 with 59,301 hospitalized. The Saturday peak last April occurred on 4/18 with 57,761 hospitalized.
The Covid Tracking Project at The Atlantic will unaccountably stop collecting such data on March 7th. I say unaccountably because the absolute low in Saturday hospitalizations after the April outbreak was 27,967 on June 20th and the October lows never matched that. We're not even close to those levels yet. It's WAY too early to conclude that data collection should cease when the previous lows haven't yet been taken out.
Meanwhile, the hospitalization data collected by the University of Minnesota continues to show the second wave still in decline at the end of February. The worst states (NY in gray, CA in blue, TX in pink, and FL in green) for hospitalizations are shown in the graphs. The declines are welcome, but levels remain elevated.
Daily new case data in a number of countries, e.g. Brazil, Finland, Hungary, Czechia, France, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, in recent weeks has turned upward to one degree or another. This could be a harbinger of a coming seasonal surge.
Meanwhile about 7.5% of the US is fully vaccinated, and 15% partially vaccinated.
It remains to be seen how effective the vaccines will be against mutations, and how durable the vaccines will be over time.
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Friday, February 26, 2021
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Despite non-stop recruitment propaganda, the LGBT share of the US population rises to only 5.6%, and most of that is bi, and most of that is female
5.6% of US adults are LGBT, up from 4.5% in 2017.
3.1% of Americans identify as bisexual, 1.4% as gay, 0.7% as lesbian and 0.6% as transgender.
The rise in Americans saying they are bisexual is driven by women:
[O]ver 3% of US adults say they are bisexual (a sexual identity in which someone is attracted to people of their gender or other genders). This is up from just over 1% in 2008. (The GSS allowed individuals to self-classify as “heterosexual or straight,” “gay, lesbian, homosexual,” “bisexual,” or “don’t know.”) An analysis of the GSS data by the sociologists D’Lane Compton and Tristan Bridges shows that the change has been almost entirely due to an increase in the number of bisexual women . . ..
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Tiger Woods' father groomed him for golf, but inserted a self-destruct device in the training
"A close family friend said Woods learned his philandering ways from watching his father have sex with blondes in a Winnebago RV that he parked next to golf courses when they practiced in his childhood."
Monday, February 22, 2021
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Hospitalization data from the states worst affected by COVID-19 show two distinct waves of the pandemic, the second more severe in California and Texas and less severe in New York and Florida
Florida, Texas and California all lagged the outbreak in New York, but the experience of all four coincide in the second wave, which is clearly now receding.
The Spanish Flu pandemic had three waves.
1918 Pandemic Influenza: Three Waves
New York (gray), Florida (green), California (blue), Texas (pink) |
LOL, The Atlantic has declared the pandemic over and will stop collecting data on March 7, 2021
It's good to be a Democrat.
Meanwhile through Feb 20 2,802 people in the US have died of COVID-19 every single damn day in February, the second highest daily death rate measured monthly since the beginning of the pandemic.
Everyone thinks the recent big drop in cases means it's over? What a joke.
New cases in Feb just through 2/20 total 1.873 million, far exceeding May 2020's 1.799 million. The country went into SHUT DOWN mode with far fewer new cases in March 2020: 188,461. In April when so many Americans perished there were just 1.075 million new cases.
It's way too early to stop collecting data, unless of course you have an axe to grind, like the neo-cons did when Goldberg at The Atlantic insisted Iraq had WMD.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Now that Rush Limbaugh is dead, The Daily Beast fills the gap with a chopadickoffame story
Inside the World of Backstreet Castrators, Cutters and Eunuch-Makers :
Friday, February 19, 2021
Peggy Noonan has second thoughts, recalls with fondness the crabbed public square of Fairness Doctrine infamy
What a shock, right? Roman Catholic from Brooklyn thinks Methodist hick from Missouri should have been shut up long ago.
Rush Limbaugh’s Complicated Legacy :
By the 1980s it was being argued that the doctrine itself was hurting free speech: It was a governmental intrusion on the freedom of broadcasters, and, perversely, it inhibited the presentation of controversial issues. There were so many voices in the marketplace, and more were coming; fairness and balance would sort themselves out.
In 1987 the doctrine was abolished, a significant Reagan-era reform. But I don’t know. Let me be apostate again. Has anything in our political culture gotten better since it was removed? Aren’t things more polarized, more bitter, less stable?
I’m not sure it was good for America.
Imagine if religion were similarly circumscribed.
From 17 distinct religious groups in 1776 and about 3,200 congregations, today there are north of 300 groups and 300,000 congregations.
The lack of unanimity surely bothers devout believers in one or the other, some of whom are certain everyone else is going to hell, and something should be done to stop it.
I suspect the one true church of Peggy Noonan feels the same way, except its liberalism has invented the half-way house of Purgatory to roast malefactors until ready for Valhalla.
Deal with it, Peggy. It's still a Protestant country.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Rush Limbaugh dead at 70, FOX obituary includes famous "preamble to the Constitution" blunder from CPAC 2009
Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio pioneer, dead at 70 :
"We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, Freedom and the pursuit of happiness."
The mistake is fairly typical, both of Rush, and of Rush's audience the Baby Boom for whom basic knowledge of civics had long been in decline. For Rush, and for them, conservatism was always more aspirational than actual, often conflating present perspectives with historical realities.
An example is the Straussians who in our time explicitly argued for the unity of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, giving Thomas Jefferson's more revolutionary, Enlightenment-tinged views in the former too much sway over the interpretation of the latter.
The irony of that fusionism was always that Jefferson sought for the United States "to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them", not the "exceptional" American position touted by Limbaugh as an heir of America's post-war position of global domination.
The Constitution's preamble expressed a matter-of-factly self-interested goal, "to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity", a country of Americans, by Americans, and for Americans, not a nation of immigrants, by immigrants, and for immigrants, not a nation of heroes marching forth in search of monsters to destroy. America's founding was above all modest, which is perhaps the surest indicator of its inherent conservatism.
If Rush Limbaugh slaughtered the important details on a regular basis, what made the show so enjoyable was the entertainment, which largely came from the sheer pleasure Rush derived from doing it and communicating it, "having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have". If nothing else, Rush Limbaugh was a conservative of enjoyment, and who doesn't want to be around people having a good time? It is one reason for Rush's tremendous success in a career spanning more than three decades.
Students of conservatism might think this a whimsy, not to be taken seriously, but no less a figure than Russell Kirk devoted a chapter to such conservatism in his "The Conservative Mind". Rush himself, from time to time, in his own non-academic way had observed how liberals are not funny and don't have fun, and in this he was on to something. Generally speaking conservatives possess contentment to a far greater degree than do liberals, derived from a judiciously formed view of the self as sinners saved by grace. It is a freeing thing which allows people to accept things as they are, even as God accepts sinners as they are.
Of course in the post-war there has been a tremendous amount for Americans to enjoy, to the point that we have become completely distracted by this. One may rightly say we have overdone it, and that enjoyment has frankly become conservatives' Achilles' heel. It has produced a myriad of problems, not the least of which has been a failure to reproduce, inattention to religion, and a proclivity for the easy politics of the executive where we look for one man to save us. As America was not built by Protestants enjoying religious entertainments and all-you-can-eat brunches on Sundays, it will not be recovered, if that is still possible, but by serious, religious people who work hard, deny themselves, and save.
Rush Limbaugh was an optimist about America because he still believed there were enough individual Americans remaining who exemplified the old virtues. America's future will depend on Rush having been right.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Monday, February 15, 2021
It would be silly for Republicans to waste any time on a Trump candidacy in 2024
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Friday, February 12, 2021
Thursday, February 11, 2021
NeverTrump lunatics, led by Evan McMuffinhead and themselves fractured, hold ZOOM call to form 3rd Party in headlong rush to formalize GOP fracture over "nativism"
Add in a new "Patriot Party" and the GOP will be an utter shambles.
EXCLUSIVE-Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party :
More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of "principled conservatism," including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump. ...
Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump's grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.
Libertarian survey: Republicans are sharply divided over Trump, the QAnon child sex conspiracy, and the use of force
Among Trump voters 53% view themselves as GOP supporters vs. 47% who view themselves as Trump supporters.
29% of Republicans believe Trump was fighting a global sex trafficking ring whereas 30% do not. 43% of Republicans were . . . uncertain about this, which is kind of shocking when you consider that . . . Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.
55% of Republicans support the use of force to stop the decline of the traditional American way of life and its values, but 43% oppose this. A clear majority of Republicans, however, oppose using violence to achieve political ends even when elected leaders fail to act to "protect America", whatever that means.
The survey, a project of the libertarian American Enterprise Institute, notably fails to ask any questions about immigration, which was the beginning, middle, and end of the Trump 2016 run for the presidency and also his most colossal failure.
It's more expedient for libertarians who want to fling open the borders, in league with Democrats, to have Trump "major in the minors" and paint him in the worst light at those things than to expose the widespread popular support for immigration restriction at which he failed.
That issue lurks underneath the survey's result which found that:
There is bipartisan agreement that the American system of democracy is failing to address the concerns and needs of the public. Nearly seven in 10 (69 percent) Americans agree that American democracy serves the interests of only the wealthy and powerful. Seventy percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans hold this view.
After the ballots are counted: Conspiracies, political violence, and American exceptionalism
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Sunday, February 7, 2021
V is for victory, V is for violence: Molly Ball never tells you the meaning of her election 2020 story, but you can figure it out
The meaning is that the left threatened violence if Trump got re-elected, and made good on that threat with the summer down payment in the George Floyd riots. The threat created the default attitude at every level of the process to capitulate and avoid a repeat: Either accept the results of an election where nearly half the votes cast were of a kind most susceptible to fraud, or else.
That's what made the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Evangelicals cave to the left's long active operation one week before Nov 3.
It's all in there, but you have to think about it because Molly isn't going to just hand that narrative to you.
The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election :
The summer uprising had shown that people power could have a massive impact. Activists began preparing to reprise the demonstrations if Trump tried to steal the election. “Americans plan widespread protests if Trump interferes with election,” Reuters reported in October, one of many such stories. More than 150 liberal groups, from the Women’s March to the Sierra Club to Color of Change, from Democrats.com to the Democratic Socialists of America, joined the “Protect the Results” coalition. The group’s now defunct website had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.
About a week before Election Day, Podhorzer received an unexpected message: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanted to talk.
The AFL-CIO and the Chamber have a long history of antagonism. Though neither organization is explicitly partisan, the influential business lobby has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns, just as the nation’s unions funnel hundreds of millions to Democrats. On one side is labor, on the other management, locked in an eternal struggle for power and resources.
But behind the scenes, the business community was engaged in its own anxious discussions about how the election and its aftermath might unfold. The summer’s racial-justice protests had sent a signal to business owners too: the potential for economy-disrupting civil disorder. “With tensions running high, there was a lot of concern about unrest around the election, or a breakdown in our normal way we handle contentious elections,” says Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer. These worries had led the Chamber to release a pre-election statement with the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based CEOs’ group, as well as associations of manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, calling for patience and confidence as votes were counted.
But Bradley wanted to send a broader, more bipartisan message. He reached out to Podhorzer, through an intermediary both men declined to name. Agreeing that their unlikely alliance would be powerful, they began to discuss a joint statement pledging their organizations’ shared commitment to a fair and peaceful election. They chose their words carefully and scheduled the statement’s release for maximum impact. As it was being finalized, Christian leaders signaled their interest in joining, further broadening its reach.
The statement was released on Election Day, under the names of Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, and the heads of the National Association of Evangelicals and the National African American Clergy Network. “It is imperative that election officials be given the space and time to count every vote in accordance with applicable laws,” it stated. “We call on the media, the candidates and the American people to exercise patience with the process and trust in our system, even if it requires more time than usual.” The groups added, “Although we may not always agree on desired outcomes up and down the ballot, we are united in our call for the American democratic process to proceed without violence, intimidation or any other tactic that makes us weaker as a nation.”
Saturday, February 6, 2021
Indiana did a massive COVID deaths back-fill on Feb 4, skewing the averages
Friday, February 5, 2021
In January 2021 just 47.4% of the civilian population had full-time jobs, compared with 2020's average of 47.3%
Biden reportedly said in response to the employment situation summary today:
"At that rate it's going to take ten years to get back to full employment. That's not hyperbole that's a fact."
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Climate Update for KGRR: January 2021
Climate Update for KGRR: January 2021
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Saturday, January 30, 2021
For now, the Pfizer vaccine appears to be the one to get, if you've got the choice, because the coronavirus is mutating
The new Novavax vaccine is just 49% effective vs. the new South Africa coronavirus strain B.1.351 which emerged last October and was just reported in two cases in South Carolina.
Johnson & Johnson's new vaccine is just 57% effective against it.
Moderna says its vaccine is "far less effective against the South Africa strain".
Pfizer's vaccine appears to be the most robust of them all, "only slightly less effective against the South Africa variant compared with the others."
Story here.
Friday, January 29, 2021
Johns Hopkins: The COVID-19 case fatality rate to date in South Africa is 2.99% vs. 1.68% in the US
Virus variant from South Africa detected in US for 1st time:
The variant first found in South Africa was detected in October. Since then, it has been found in at least 30 other countries.
It is not obvious that the mutation found in October is responsible for the outsized increases in cases and deaths recently observed in South Africa. Both rose in tandem not until the beginning of December, and the mutation could have been present earlier. Seasonal factors may be at work. July is South Africa's winter, January its summer. Elevation moderates summer high temperatures and latitude its winter lows.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Berman and Milanovic show increased "intersection between the top decile of capital-income recipients and labor-income earners" since Reagan 1986 tax reform has led to higher income inequality
Regrettably the study does not mention another factor, how free-trade, particularly with China and East Asia generally, helped drive wages in the US at the bottom ever lower. The Reagan era produced a perfect storm of screwed for the bottom half in America.
Here:
Monday, January 25, 2021
Sunday, January 24, 2021
US COVID-19 Update for first 23 days of January 2021: January remains on track to be the worst month yet but may turn out to be a hump month
Total announced US COVID-19 cases, first 23 days of Jan 2021: 5,021,670 or 218,333 per day.
Dec 2020 cases per day: 206,809.
Nov 2020 cases per day: 146,872.
Self-reported mask compliance rates of 49% are probably still quite exaggerated. People who complain that health safety mandates don't work never contend with that fact. The virus wouldn't be spreading the way it is if it were really true that people are finally doing what's been asked of them.
Friday, January 22, 2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
US COVID-19 deaths plough right through 400k mark in Johns Hopkins data today
This morning the figure was still 399,500 but this evening is already past 401k.
Think of it as Donald Trump's retirement number on his last full day in office.
Update for COVID-19 English-speaking world case fatality rates as of 1/19/21
Per Johns Hopkins University (data changes slightly as we write):