Got a call today from the Peter Meijer campaign, running for Justin Amash's seat (MI-3)

I asked about Meijer's position on immigration. Got the typical "he supports Trump's position" and favors lots of LEGAL immigration.

When probed on H1B visas the caller didn't know what they were. When I explained they allowed foreigners to work in the US, he offered that he thought Meijer was in favor of lots of those, too, even after I pointed out that tens of millions of Americans are out of work and don't need the competition. 

The campaign worker clearly expected me to be a libertarian who is in favor of lots of immigration, which is what you'll get from Peter Meijer, Republican, if he's elected.

The caller wasn't prepared to encounter a voter who has often voted Republican who is against that.

Shows you how thimble deep Republican thinking is on the issue, and that Trump's GOP hasn't moved an inch in the direction of immigration restriction, mostly because Trump's a phony on immigration.

Won't be checking the box for Peter Meijer.

"To impose upon nations the domination of majorities is to subject them to mediocrity"

The liberal Russian Prince K., in EMPIRE OF THE CZAR, by the Marquis de Custine.

Oh. So now it's BHLM, huh? What about the Asians? BHALM? How about BLAHM instead (goes with all the noise they make while rioting, right)? Native Americans? BHANALM? NAHBALM? (heh, rhymes with napalm)

So all lives do matter, unless they're white. Got it, chief. Got it, jefe. Got it chīfu. Got it kungo.

Here:

"Strikers are demanding sweeping action by corporations and government to confront systemic racism and economic inequality that limits mobility and career advancement for many Black and Hispanic workers, who make up a disproportionate number of those earning less than a living wage."

Rush Limbaugh today, wrong again: "If you make $55,000 a year you are in the top 10%"

What a shock, right?

He's not even close, per SSA.gov for 2018. You have to make $100k to reach the top 10%. $55k is simply top 30%. $60k puts you in the top 25%. 2019 data comes out in October.

$55k stopped being top 10% in the year 2000. 

If it's a number, Rush will have it wrong.

Deaths from COVID-19 in CA, AZ, TX and FL remain a phenomenon overwhelmingly affecting those 50 and older just as they did in New York City, but so far they represent only 1/3 of the pandemic in those states vs 3/4 in NYC

In New York City, older people were the chief death victims by far as in most places, but there they represented 75% of the pandemic.

Less fuel in the south so far means we're going to see less fire, and already have.

You still do not want to get this disease, unless you want to risk permanent impairments to your health. Nearly 10% of people 0-49 in AZ as in NYC are still dying from COVID-19.

Wear a mask and avoid crowds.

Data in FL comes from reliable news reporting through July 11. Data for CA, AZ and TX come from state dashboards. TX data is based on completed death investigations, which are far fewer than total deaths to date. CA straight up tells you what you want to know without having to calculate it. NYC data comes from the city's dashboard.

The sum of average daily new deaths from COVID-19 in the 15 worst US states for deaths has declined for three straight weeks, despite rising averages in California, Florida and Texas

The Johns Hopkins coronavirus dashboard is showing 140,103 US deaths from COVID this evening

That's twelve days since hitting 130k.

You'll recognize the conservatism of Russell Kirk in James M. Patterson's description of the American founding, but you'll never learn about it from dimwits like Rush Limbaugh or dilettantes like Mark Levin

The Dogmatic Rivalry at the Heart of America:

'In the American context, “liberalism” was not the term used to define the political foundations of the Declaration of Independence or the American Constitution. These documents were understood to be the extension of an older British tradition, even if the British themselves had failed to keep it. American colonists had, by 1776, over one hundred and fifty years of experience of self-government in covenanted and compacted governments, and the language of individual consent to government and rights reserved by individuals against the government were there at the very moment the colonies were chartered.

'Hence, as Donald S. Lutz finds that it is not right to call the Founding “Lockean” because the colonial origins of the Founding preceded Locke by decades. Rather, the Founders found in Locke something that articulated what their forebears already knew and understood when hewing logs to build a cabin in 1611. Moreover, during the Founding, Locke received attention only in the lead up to American Independence but faded into the background as matters of constitutional design arose upon the revolution’s success. During that period, jurist William Blackstone and republican theorist Montesquieu dominated the discourse, with David Hume, Samuel von Pufendorf, and Edward Coke each receiving more attention than Locke from 1780 onward. All were dwarfed by references to the Bible, especially, as Lutz discovered, to the book of Deuteronomy. One would only be surprised by this if one believed that the Founders were liberals. Some were, of a kind, but they were primarily republicans. Their appeal to “liberal” principles was, as James W. Ceaser, has argued, primarily to insist that the “rights of Englishmen” to which Americans, being no longer Englishmen, could no longer appeal. Rather, what made the rights of Englishmen truly rights was how they were grounded in nature, accessible by reason, and endowed by God. In addition, Paul DeHart has shown how this effort involved a combination of classical, Christian, and modern sources with the diverse and extensive experience in statecraft.

'For these reasons, it is simply ahistorical to apply a prefabricated concept of liberalism onto the American Founding or attribute it to a rather complicated mix of ideas and influences expressed among the leaders at the time.'

Rush Limbaugh, The Big Fat Idiot, imagines Vitamin D was known during the Spanish Flu Epidemic when it wasn't even first theorized until 1922

In the Face of COVID-19, We’re Not Acting at All Like Americans:

In the Spanish flu, ’17, ’18, ’19, 1917, much death. Do you know that there was not one mention of it by the president of the United States at the time, Woodrow Wilson? Never talked about it. There was no national policy to deal with it. There was no shutdown. There was just, “Hey, go outside, get some fresh air, stand in the sun as long as you can, get some vitamin D, feel better.”

Vitamin D:

In 1922, Elmer McCollum tested modified cod liver oil in which the vitamin A had been destroyed.[12] The modified oil cured the sick dogs, so McCollum concluded the factor in cod liver oil which cured rickets was distinct from vitamin A. He called it vitamin D because it was the fourth vitamin to be named.[194][195][196] It was not initially realized that, unlike other vitamins, vitamin D can be synthesised by humans through exposure to UV light.

When you've lost Alabama to a pro-immigration Republican, you can't help but feel all is lost

Trump excels at the adulation, insatiable desires, convulsions and distractions

"He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles."

-- Plato's Republic, Book IX

Trump as tyrant in the classical sense

This brief excerpt from an essay which is otherwise an exercise in hysteria is quite accurate:

'Trump is rather a tyrant in the classical sense, a man utterly at the mercy of his basest impulses, which he has aplenty. He is weak not strong, obsessed with his “ratings,” and incapable, even in the gravest moments, of pretending to the statesmanship required of his office.'

Freedom is the will to say No

The first Rasmussen poll of Election 2020 has Biden beating Trump by 10 points

The sum of average daily new COVID deaths measured from the pandemic start in the 15 worst states is down 5% in the last two weeks

COVID deaths are increasing in CA, FL and TX but not enough to offset the overall decline in the worst states combined

Juries decide if someone murdered somebody, not Rush Limbaugh: He might as well be a member of the mainstream media

Rush's rush to prejudge this case and using all this inflammatory language to boot was simply outrageous and would be at any time, but especially while rioters and looters were attempting to burn down the country. He's no conservative, no friend of law and order, no friend of the police. He's a coward who didn't stand up for what's right at a time it was needed most.

The police arrest transcript is out and it shows that the attending officers had a thoroughgoing and reasonable belief from beginning to end that Floyd was resisting arrest under the influence of drugs, that police had called for an ambulance immediately after Floyd hurt himself and that Floyd was bleeding from the mouth long before Chauvin ever arrived and put him on the ground, that Floyd blamed his supposed breathing difficulties on having had COVID when asked directly if he were under the influence of drugs, and that Floyd's complaints about being unable to breathe persisted throughout the encounter which reasonably led police to believe their actions had had nothing to do with his breathing complaints and wouldn't.

The autopsy proved Floyd was under the influence, had in fact had COVID, and did not die of asphyxiation but of cardiac arrest. The police transcript says he crashed in the ambulance and did not die on the pavement.

George Floyd's death was an accident, but mostly of George Floyd's own making, beginning with taking drugs, hanging out with a woman but not his wife and the mother of his children, and ending with possession of multiple counterfeit bills and passing one off as legit.

June 1:

"And poor George Floyd, it’s been said that he lost his life. He didn’t lose his life. It was taken from him. He was murdered for no possible explicable, justifiable reason. It was just sickening, sickening to watch, sickening to see. And you look at the face of the cop involved in the video and the three who stood around and weren’t doing anything. And you just wonder, how stupid can you be..."

June 2: 

"None of this is something happens and these people see it and they get mad and take to the streets. They are waiting. They are programmed. They are waiting for the call to action.It’s not that George Floyd was murdered; it’s that somebody was at the hands of a cop, and that’s the go signal". 

June 2:

"George Floyd died in a blue city. He died in a deep blue city, in a deep blue state. He died in a place where there shouldn’t be any police brutality because the Democrats are not gonna permit it. The Democrats are gonna fix it. The Democrats are gonna make sure it doesn’t happen.And yet George Floyd was murdered in a deep blue state, in a deep blue city, and somehow this is because of systemic racism and white supremacy brought to you by — dadelut, dadelut, dadelut — Donald Trump?"

June 4:

"Coronavirus and the George Floyd Murder:

"What the cops did was obscene. It was. Look, I understand anybody repulsed by that. I was not just repulsed. I was livid. It was so damn stupid. It was mean. Every potential negative character trait that you could associate with it, it was."

June 5:

"But the point is that the Democrat Party, as it is constituted and as it is functioning today, all of this that’s happening that’s in relationship to the George Floyd murder, it’s all a failure. The fact that George Floyd was murdered is a testament to the failure of liberal Democrat politics. Where did it happen?"

Despite rising coronavirus deaths in California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, the overall trend remains down

Daily new deaths nationally hit an interim low on Jun 21 of 257 in the New York Times data set. This was followed by 270 on Jun 28, 264 on Jul 4, and 262 on Jul 5. Clearly the period from the third week of June to the Fourth of July holiday has marked a welcome low in pandemic deaths.

In the 15 worst states for deaths from coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, it is telling how the average of daily new deaths measured from the beginning continues to trend lower. The worst states for average daily new deaths measured from the beginning, as of Jun 27, were, in this order: NY NJ PA MI MA IL CT CA LA FL MD OH GA IN and TX.  

On Jun 27, the sum of the average of daily new deaths from coronavirus in those 15 states stood at 852, measured from the beginning in each state. Again, that's the sum of average daily new deaths in the 15 worst states since the beginning of the pandemic on that date. It includes any and all revisions and updates reported to date, for whatever reason. No messing around with moving averages and all the BS (Yes, I'm talking about you New York, you New Jersey, you Delaware, you Illinois, and who knows who else) which gave false indications at a point in time in the past because the data was provisional, or standards of inclusion changed, or somebody came along and cleaned up your sorry mess. This way at least you have a fixed terminus a quo in each state, and a moving terminus ad quem which you can track from day to day which incorporates all the changes smoothed out over the long haul. A nice relatively clean benchmark, at a time when it appears we have otherwise reached a new low ebb.

Well, a week later from Jun 27 when we were at 852, on Jul 4 that sum had fallen to 828. By Jul 7 it had fallen again, to 819. And despite the rise in deaths in the south very recently, the sum on Jul 8 fell again, to 817 as of this morning's figures.

Despite all the bad news in the south (CA 145 deaths on 7/8, AZ 101 on 7/7, TX 119 on 7/8), and New Jersey again dumping 142 new deaths into the numbers on Jul 8 (really New Jersey?), the death trend in the worst hit states, which again does include CA, TX and FL, overall continues to trend lower. This is what one would expect if the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Time marches on and naturally ameliorates the ugly data, as long as no new ugly data appear. You'd be able to tell easily if deaths were getting worse because the average from the beginning would flatline and then trend higher. Or if suddenly AZ, for example, joined the list of worst hit states (I'm using a low threshold of 18 average daily new deaths measured from the beginning), that would be a huge red flag (AZ did tick up, however, from 11 average daily new deaths to 12 recently). CO at 14 and VA at 15 would be more likely candidates to join the list than AZ at this point. But so far neither flatlining of the average nor "new joiners" is happening.

The death trend is lower.

So far. 

Johns Hopkins University shows 130,007 US deaths from coronavirus just minutes ago

On Jun 22 I estimated we'd see 130k by about Jul 15, so we are nine days early.

So it took 14 days to add another 10k vs. 15 days from 110k to 120k in this data set.

The problem is we had big death data dumps both on Jun 25 and Jun 30, adding 3,766 old deaths from the past which had never been counted in the totals.

I think that sped up the climb unrepresentatively.

New deaths are actually accumulating at a slower pace.

In the 15 worst states for coronavirus deaths, average daily new deaths counted from the very beginning of the pandemic totaled 852 for those 15 states on Sat Jun 27, and declined to 828 on Sat Jul 4. That includes all those data dumps, too.

We've observed four days recently where total US new deaths have been below 300, levels we haven't seen since late March just as the pandemic was kicking into high gear:

Jun 21 257

Jun 28 270

Jul 04 264

Jul 05 262.

With case counts rapidly rising in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona and many other places in the south, it is feared we'll be seeing a rise in deaths in coming weeks. We'll have to see. Since such a high proportion of deaths occurred in nursing and assisted living facilities in the north, it is difficult to say if we'll experience the same thing in the south. They've had time to learn.

With new deaths actually hitting new lows, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay away from crowds, especially in enclosed spaces, keep your distance and wear a mask. It's easy if you try.

 

Climate Update For KGRR June 2020

Climate Update For KGRR June 2020

Max T 93, Mean 91

Min T 42, Mean 43

Av T 69.6, Mean 67.7

Precip 2.84, Mean 3.55

Snow measurement season officially ends: Actual 53.5, Mean 66.7.

Heating degree day measurement season officially ends: Actual 6269, Mean 6702; season 6.46% milder than the mean, ranks a "meh" 18th among mildest winters since 1891-92.

Cooling degree days 2020 season to date: 225, Mean 184, hot start to summer 22.3% above the mean.