Sunday, August 22, 2021
The woke general on the right was made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Donald Trump effective Oct 1, 2019
He was US Army Chief of Staff 2015-2019 and Commander of III Corps at Fort Hood 2012-2014.
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Friday, August 20, 2021
Deaths per day in the US from COVID-19 by variant type
News reports say the UK variant became dominant in the US on or about April 1, 2021.
Its reign was brief.
The India variant has dominated since July 1.
It's much too early for definitive statements (50 days) because deaths lag by weeks, but so far the India variant is proving much less deadly but highly contagious.
What's interesting is that the UK variant was less deadly and less transmissible than the strains which preceded it for the 456 days from the onset of infections in the US in 2020 through Mar 31, 2021.
The numbers so far suggest that the virus has mutated to become less deadly over time, and more transmissible. It needs hosts who are alive to thrive, and the UK variant came and went quickly because it wasn't up to this task, whereas the India variant clearly is:
Calendar 2020 - Mar 31, 2021: 66,838 cases per day; 1,210 deaths per day; case fatality rate 1.81%
Apr - Jun 2021 (UK variant): 34,736 cases per day; 580 deaths per day; cfr 1.67%
Jul - 8/19, 2021 (India variant): 76,320 cases per day; 433 deaths per day; cfr 0.57%.
Keep in mind that deaths per day from influenza in the United States average less than 100 over the last ten years.
A fairer full 3-month comparison will require waiting until at least Oct 1.
In the meantime, inhibiting transmission is not a fool's errand. Don't share others' air in enclosed spaces, mask where appropriate, and wash frequently. Increasing numbers of breakthrough cases show that the vaccines are far from foolproof. It is not known whether this is because of the character of the new variant or because the vaccines wear out over time.
Public health authorities in the US have been pretty appalling in their performance. We do not test, trace and quarantine anywhere near the way we should, nor do we collect data the way we should. This is a hidden disgrace but is no smaller than the mega public disgrace going on in Kabul right now.
We are not a serious country.
All data is from The New York Times and subject to revision.
Johns Hopkins: US COVID-19 deaths crossed the 620k mark overnight Aug 12-13 and are nearly at 626k today
Thursday, August 19, 2021
LOL, the html doesn't lie: The Guardian didn't know that the year 1336 is in the 14th-century
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/aug/19/meat-rich-diet-of-13th-century-monks-caused-digestive-issues-research-finds
You can change the headline, folks, but you'll always be THE GRAUNIAD.
The horror: Share paying no income taxes spikes from 44% in 2019 to 61% in 2020
Stereotypical story here.
No one ever talks about how little Americans make.
In 2019, you'll be happy to know, 61% of individual wage earners in the US made less than $45,000.
44% made less than $30k.
I'd like to see our legislators live on $30k, since so many of the people they claim to represent must. Maybe they'd be less inclined to rob us blind year in and year out with their trillion$ in spending.
Congressional salaries, incidentally, put the 435 members of the US House in the top 3.5% of individual wage earners.
IT'S WHY THEY RUN.
There's something horribly wrong with a Rube Goldberg tax code which allows:
the rich to avoid taking "ordinary income" and pay little or zero tax on their fabulous capital returns;
more than the bottom half also to pay little to nothing (don't forget that they do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes);
and the people in-between to get squeezed to death.
Given that deficits no longer matter, why do taxes continue to matter? Just end them. We borrow the money anyway.
smdh
"Alcohol drinking was at its highest point between 1976 and 1978"
That's because peak Baby Boom from 1957 turned 20 in 1977.
More young thirsty mouths, relatively speaking.
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Day Eight: 3k still without power in Michigan from the electric utility Consumers Energy
No one apologizes anymore in this country, for anything.
Even Peter Bergen recognizes Biden made a huge mistake abiding by Trump's insane handover of the war on terror in Afghanistan to the Taliban
The whole thing is worth reading, here:
Biden could have easily said the Taliban had reneged on their agreement
with the United States so he could continue to keep a relatively small
US military force in Afghanistan to advise and assist the Afghan Army
and to support the Afghan Air Force to thwart Taliban advances.
... the American presence in Afghanistan had shrunk to only 2,500 troops --
particularly few for a force of 1.3 million active-duty US service
personnel. That small force helped to sustain the Afghan military
physically and psychologically, not least with close air support.
Now,
the Biden administration unilaterally has pulled the plug on the US
troop presence in Afghanistan, which cratered morale among the Afghan
military and population. It also precipitated thousands of
Western-allied soldiers to head for the exits, as well as the many
thousands of contractors in Afghanistan that were, among other things,
keeping the Afghan Air Force aloft.
And now the white flags of the Taliban flutter all over Afghanistan. It did not need to be this way.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
The Orwellian situation in Kabul right now began Feb 29, 2020 when Trump announced that the Taliban would be taking over the war on terror
You read that right, the Taliban.
How did we not understand this 100% crackpottery for what it was at the time?
Down is up, evil is good, enemy is friend.
Starting at about the 3:15 mark.
The Afghanistan debacle is of Trump's design, but occurred only because Biden decided to implement it and withdrew the air cover necessary to the Afghan army's mission
William Maley, August 15, 2021:
The 2020 US-Taliban deal created deep and widespread apprehension about
what the future might hold. Then, it only took a few localised failures
to sap the confidence of all sorts of actors, both military and
civilian, in the survival of the government. Side-switching became a
rational strategy, then spun out of control.
The US troop withdrawal also seems to have reflected a failure on the part of Biden – although not the US military — to appreciate how destructive the February 2020 agreement had been to the effectiveness of the Afghan military.
In requiring the withdrawal not just of US troops but US maintenance contractors, it compromised the ongoing capabilities of key assets in the inventory of the Afghan National Army, as well as depriving the army of critical air cover.
As an insightful analysis put it,
in the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the US pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore.
William Maley, March 3, 2020
The text provides for a reduction of US troop numbers within 135 days to
8,600, to be followed by “withdrawal of all remaining forces from
Afghanistan within the remaining nine and a half (9.5) months.” It also
purports to bind not just the US but also its allies, including
Australia, even though they were not parties to the agreement; and it
includes “all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security
contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel.” ... the agreement is better seen as a “withdrawal agreement” than a “peace
agreement.” It is no wonder that the Taliban are painting it as a
victory.
We were all consumed with COVID-19 in February 2020, and completely ignored this.
People who say now that the rapid fall of Afghanistan would not have happened under a second Trump term don't know what they are talking about.
Trump designed this outcome, and Biden was only too happy to implement it.
Biden gets to say he ended the war, pleases the progressives on his left, and blames Trump for it, all at the same time.
And the GOP alone gets to be The Stupid Party yet once more, unless of course the thousands of Americans trapped in Kabul this morning because Biden failed to get them out ahead of time are not permitted to leave, or are taken hostage.
Their fate, and Biden's reputation, are in the Taliban's hands, and that, when all is said and done, is the Democrats' disgrace.
Monday, August 16, 2021
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