Can't wait until Emperor Pooh Bear gives Elon Musk The Grand Cross of the Chinese Eagle

 

Oh, I hate Elon Musk now

 Activists accuse Tesla of "economic support for genocide" with new showroom in China's Xinjiang region

For your listening pleasure this evening, one year after the end of WWIII

 

Or is it two?

So it goes.

And to think World War III was only a year ago

 Seems longer ago than that.

See what I mean?

At least Billy Pilgrim knows what I mean.

Oh Soleimani

 

Alex Berenson still thinks The Atlantic was wrong about Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice

You can still read Alex Berenson, at Substack, as I do. He continues to be an important source for stories our media continues to ignore (censor) because they don't fit the narrative. But sometimes the takes can be odd.

Alex today still thinks the Georgia story way back when was a bad covid take, and that Germany's troubles presently somehow invalidate The Atlantic's positive opinion on the record of Europe's biggest country outside of Russia.

Neither point is defensible.

The US State of Georgia today ranks 10th worst in the US for deaths per million of its population, at 2961/m. Mississippi is our very worst, at 3511/m. In between there, there are red and blue states, including New Jersey and New York.

But Germany today is at 1361/m. Worst place in the world Peru by contrast is at 6336/m.

Germany's done pretty damn well considering it has a population of 83 million compared with Georgia's paltry <10 million.

The situation in Georgia to date, in fact, is 118% worse than in Germany. And if Georgia were a country, it would be ranked in the top 15 worst performers in the world today for deaths per million.

I think Alex is letting animus cloud his judgment. Animus certainly for The Atlantic, but perhaps also for Germany.

Gee, why would that be?

Georgia's done a very poor job. Not as poor as New Jersey and New York, and not poor enough by comparison with them to be singled out the way they were. "Stupid hicks" elitism, right? On that we agree. But Germany's done remarkably well, and we should care enough to understand why.

But Alex is too busy to go into that right now. The drive-by-shooting of the "little homily on the brilliance of Germany’s Covid response" will have to do for now.

COVID-19 in the USA by the numbers: About as infectious as the flu, but 10-13 times more deadly in the first two years of the pandemic

Deaths 2020:  346,050

Deaths 2021:  477,867

 

Cases 2020: 20.0m

Cases 2021: 34.7m

 

Case fatality rate 2020: 1.73%

Case fatality rate 2021: 1.38%

 

Case prevalence 2020:   6.1% of 328m population

Case prevalence 2021: 10.4% of 332m population

 

Typical annual prevalence of influenza: 8% of population (9.2% in the previous decade)

Typical annual deaths from influenza: 36,000

Alpha and Delta have produced 22% more cases in 2021 in the USA but 20% fewer deaths

Alpha dominated in the US during April, May, and June. Delta has dominated since July 1.

 

Alpha and Delta cases in the US, April through December 2021: 24.2 million

US COVID-19 cases April through December 2020: 19.8 million

 

Alpha and Delta deaths in the US, April through December 2021: 272,259

US COVID-19 deaths April through December 2020: 341,746

The data is consistent with the theory that viruses mutate to become more infectious at the expense of lethality.

All indications so far indicate that this will also continue to be the case with Omicron.

 

Axios finally updated its Variant Tracker: So far "Delta" still dominates in the US, with Omicron most prevalent in Louisiana at just shy of 27%

Check it out here.

Politico reported last week that the CDC had to climb down about its estimate of the prevalence of Omicron in the US.

 

It had originally estimated prevalence of 73.2% in the US on Dec 18, but revised that down to just 22.5%.

 

Quite the doozy, that.

 

This was very amusing coming as it did with all the other messaging shifts last week:

Ditch the cloth masks for N95s;

Walensky at CDC claiming suddenly that PCR tests are unreliable;

You need only 5 days of quarantine, not ten, because, you know, Omicron is different;

Mr. I'm Going to Shut Down the Virus blurting out that there's no federal solution;

And Fauci suddenly admitting the distinction between being admitted to hospital for Covid as opposed to just with it.

Happy New Year

 

During the final week of 2021 every day is the Friday afternoon news dump for the Biden administration

 

Tennessee is reporting breakthrough deaths from COVID in August, September, and October in a range of 15-17%

 

Daily deaths per million from COVID globally haven't been this low since late October 2020, fourteen months ago, but there's a frenzy to get tested for some reason

 

Biden CDC: 10 days quarantine for Republicans, 5 days for Democrats

 

I laid in enough supplies to get me through January just in case and it now looks like We Ain't Comin' Out until spring

 

Omicron may be spreading like wildfire, but deaths per million globally are lower now, a month after its discovery, than they were in mid-October

 

Sociologist writing for TIME Magazine caricatures First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, but doesn't interview a single actual member of the church

 Attending the event in person allowed me to appreciate how central Trump remains to white evangelicalism. ...

Standing in line 2.5 hours before the event, I chatted with a group of five elderly women who all came together. All were committed churchgoers in the Dallas area, but none were members at First Baptist. ...

There was Bill, a repairman who had taken public transportation to get to First Baptist. He was not a member either, but had always been a huge fan of Trump and was eager to see him in person. ...

And there was Carlos. Like Bill, Carlos was visiting First Baptist from elsewhere in the city along with a friend. ...

Trump’s appeal Sunday morning extends far beyond the First Baptist faithful. Evangelical visitors from around the city had come to cheer for their President. They were convinced he’d been treated unfairly. And they pined to see him back in office. ...

For the vast majority of white evangelicals in the U.S., like those visiting First Baptist Dallas on Sunday, Trump is still their warrior. ... over two-thirds of white evangelicals felt the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump.

More.

This guy should get out more and document the adulation directed at Democrats visiting America's black churches and insinuate in a column about how 92% of the nation's blacks voted for Joe Biden in 2020 because they're duped by religion or something.

Christmas cheer is being able to regift the bad thing the Easter bunny left you

 

Biden promised to shut down the virus, now says there's no federal solution

 Which is even more odd since he has mandated vaccines for the employees of large companies.

The guy is obviously too old upstairs for the job.

Story.

"There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level," Biden responded, before mentioning another Republican governor.

 

John Tamny remains as confused as a thinker and as obtuse as a writer as he has ever been

John Tamny has made some progress, however.

He now admits that some of his views are "fringe".

Which is amusing, since we've known that since Russell Kirk demonstrated long ago how the libertarians have always been "chirping sectarians".

A case in point of the continuing confusion:

Tamny expresses fawning admiration for George Will's latest collection of his columns, which opens asserting the priority of the study of history.

But Tamny later avers without the slightest awareness of self-contradiction that "The talented people, the unequal people, have a tendency to run from the present and past."

Nostalgia is "dangerous".

Do make up your mind for once, John.

The seemingly interminable review is here.