Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

The house always wins.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Yes we did.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

The Math Demands It!

I personally stopped the public option…

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Reality always wins in the end.

Just a few bad apples.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Shocking, but not surprising.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Women: They Get Shit Done

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Usually wrong but never in doubt.

This blog will pay for itself.

This is a big f—–g deal.

Mandatory Masking in WV

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Good:

During Monday’s press briefing, Governor Jim Justice said he is making face masks and coverings mandatory in indoor public places.

“What I am mandating today is I am signing an executive order that requires all West Virginians to wear a face covering in all confined indoor spaces where social distancing cannot be maintained,” Justice said.

The order will go into effect at midnight Tuesday.

As I noted yesterday, things are about to go sideways in WV.

Steve supports this decision:

Mandatory Masking in WV

He is so sound asleep his whiskers are twitching from his dream.

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Low sero-prevalance in Spain

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A new study in the Lancet reports on a large scale randomized sero-prevalance study in Spain.  Spain had been hit hard by COVID-19 with a quarter million diagnosed cases and approximately 28,000 deaths. We think that for herd immunity to be established, a population needs between two thirds and five sixths to have been infected and recovered with persistent immune capacity built up.

The study did not find that:

Findings
Seroprevalence was 5·0% (95% CI 4·7–5·4) by the point-of-care test and 4·6% (4·3–5·0) by immunoassay, with a specificity–sensitivity range of 3·7% (3·3–4·0; both tests positive) to 6·2% (5·8–6·6; either test positive), with no differences by sex and lower seroprevalence in children younger than 10 years (<3·1% by the point-of-care test). There was substantial geographical variability, with higher prevalence around Madrid (>10%) and lower in coastal areas (<3%)….
Interpretation
The majority of the Spanish population is seronegative to SARS-CoV-2 infection, even in hotspot areas… These results emphasise the need for maintaining public health measures to avoid a new epidemic wave.

COVID19 Seroprevelence in Spain July 2020

This increases the confidence in the results out of New York City and other regions that had overwhelmed hospital systems and unconstrained spread: herd immunity in the worst hit areas is not even in vague reach. Lightly hit regions are still at least an order of magnitude of recovered individuals away from talking about herd immunity.

The only ways out are either vaccines, pervasive aggressive and effective public health measures or immense suffering.

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You know the drill, we’re three-hundred and thirty-eight thou short of a mill

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Thanks to everybody who gave to Steve Bullock over the weekend. We raised nearly 6K in two days. Overall, we’ve raised 662K so far since we started doing this in Fall 2016. Not bad.

I got a lot of requests to do a fundraiser for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. They’ve got a great leader — Ben Wikler — and right now Wisconsin looks like the most likely tipping point state, so it’s a win-win donation. Helps hopefully flip a state legislature and it also helps with the presidential campaign.

It’s an uphill battle to flip this one, though Politico does list as a real target this year. I found some other interesting targets in that article too and they jibe with what Sam Wang is saying so I’ll be doing fundraisers for Kansas, NC, and Florida as well later. Don’t forget — 2020 is a redistricting year so the state lejs are extremely important.

Goal Thermometer

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Comfortably Numb

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Here’s a startling passage from a Washington Post analysis of how the Biden and Trump campaigns hope to shape political narratives about the pandemic:

White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.

This part of the Trump “strategy” isn’t new. It’s all the Trump campaign has since Trump refuses to focus on an issue he considers a “political loser,” lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend what’s happening or how to address it, is incapable of learning from the example of more effective leaders and is surrounded by fellow incompetents and ass-kissers who are incapable of challenging his views. But still, it’s remarkable to see such a monstrous thing summarized in print like that.

The article says the Biden people see the COVID-19 crisis “as perhaps the clearest way yet to contrast the former vice president with President Trump, using the stumbling response and renewed surge in cases as way to paint Trump as uninformed, incapable of empathy and only concerned about his own political standing.” They would be correct about all of that, and the 2019 Biden tweet below would make a great ad, maybe with an animated Sharpie circling the date to underscore Biden’s prescience:

Comfortably Numb

According to the article, both campaigns now understand that the virus will be “the preeminent force shaping the results of November’s election.” That makes sense on July 6, 2020, but dog only knows what else this wretched year has in store for us. Here’s hoping Trump doesn’t use any of the tools at his disposal to change the subject. That’s the thought that keeps me up nights.

Open thread.

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Misplaced March optimism

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I was the pessimist in my office cluster when we left the office for the last time in mid-March.  The ACC basketball tournament in Greensboro, NC had just been cancelled midway through a play-in game.  The news coming out of New York City was looking grim and and we knew that we had totally blown the early ability to test and trace as we had nowhere near enough testing capacity.  Some of my colleagues thought we would see each other in person again after Easter.  The median guess was around Memorial Day that we would be back in the office.  I thought I would be back on a regular basis and working with my colleagues, getting cups of coffee with collaborators and brain storming with co-authors starting again today.

I had thought that we would mostly  get the logistics of massive testing figured out.  We have done that.  However we are now running into significant logistical bottlenecks again and slowing down the test-assess-inform cycle makes each test far less valuable now than it could and should be.

I had thought that late March and April would suck as we had built up a big base of unobserved and unknown cases that were actively infectious and those individuals were infecting new people until we had a massive bolus of future hospitalizations and deaths built up. At the same time, I had hoped that we would be able to rapidly respond to a disease with a well-established play-book: Break infection chains, first with overwhelming brute force of a sharp and near total lockdown where in person social interactions become rare and distant events and then once the infectious base shrinks, aggressively test-trace-isolate any individuals suspected of being plausibly infected. It would not be a pleasant lock-down period to get to the point where testing and tracing could be the effective and dominant control strategy while we waited for therapeutic, prophylatic and vaccine development, but the playbook has worked well in numerous settings and diseases.

And that worked for April. We as a society did a damn good job of being careful and staying home. And it worked. We started breaking infection chains. We as a nation brought the Reproductive rate of the virus to well under one. We gave non-NYC metro area hospitals the breathing room to learn, to evolve, and to prepare without being overwhelmed.

And then we threw it away.

Over the holiday, I was in a funk, a malaise. I was the pessimist in March and I was way too optimistic. We talked a lot about what the schools will do in the fall and how will the universities and colleges function? I don’t know. My wife and I are privileged enough that whatever the elementary and middle schools do, we can go with those decisions. Some decisions will be easier than others; my seven year old son really would benefit from being in a classroom at least some of the time. My eleven year old daughter can probably do well enough no matter what. I hope that my kids are in a classroom at least a week or two a month. But we can handle another semester of stay at home instruction or full return to school or the most likely hybrid mixture. I was the pessimist and I was way too optimistic.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Brah, Do You Even TikTok?…

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trump memorial cell phone - Tough Town

(Tough Town via GoComics.com)

Full credit to Mr. Swalwell for his sense of humor:

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Chaco Canyon, Winter

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We are adding On the Road After Dark for a couple of weeks of catch-up.

On the Road: Week of July 6 (5 am)

Albatrossity – Chaco Canyon, Winter
way2blue – Venezia Before the Flood
BillinGlendaleCA –
frosty – Coronavirus and the Road
otmar – Festung Hohensalzburg, Part 1

On the Road After Dark: Week of July 6 (10pm)

Albatrossity – Chaco Canyon, Spring
Origuy – Carmel Mission Basilica
BillinGlendaleCA –
Emma – Mt. Pleasant Iris Farm, WA
otmar – Festung Hohensalzburg, Part 2

Albatrossity

If you have traveled much in the southwestern US, you may have heard of Chaco Canyon and the Chacoan culture. But probably not, for lots of reasons. The main center of Chacoan culture is preserved in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico, and it is very isolated. You have to drive on a rutted dirt road for about 40 miles to get there, and you will need to camp because there is no lodging and no food available. The canyon is on the Colorado Plateau at about 6,000 ft above sea level, and can get very cold in winter as well as very hot in summer. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating place to visit, both in terms of the history and in terms of the flora and fauna.

The story of the Chacoan culture is still being unraveled, but beginning in the mid 800’s, construction of large buildings (containing hundreds of rooms), probably ceremonial centers, began in the canyon. These are impressive in their architecture and in what they imply about the people who built them. The structures are oriented to take advantage of the canyon features in terms of astronomical sightings, allowing the inhabitants to define the equinoxes and the solstices with great precision.

They were trade centers as well; items from Mexico and elsewhere have been found in the excavation of the ruins. By 1050 or thereabouts this site was the center of a civilization that stretched across the San Juan basin, with more than 150 widely spread Chacoan “Great Houses” linked by excellent and arrow-straight roads to Chaco Canyon itself. And then, probably as a result of droughts, it all collapsed in the 1200’s, and the inhabitants dispersed to other sites. The Puebloan Indians of the Southwest descended from the Chacoans, and their architecture retains many of the same features seen in Chaco. If you are curious to learn more, I can recommend “House of Rain”, by Craig Childs.

I have visited Chaco Canyon multiple times, in winter, spring, and summer (not yet in the fall). It is a magical place, and worth going out of your way for if you are ever in that part of the world. My first visit was in winter, New Years Eve in 2006, and here are some images from winter visits there.

On The Road - Albatrossity - Chaco Canyon, winter 7
Chaco CanyonDecember 31, 2006

The high Colorado Plateau does not get a lot of moisture, but even a little bit in the winter can transform the place. Here are some trees and shrubs after a snow storm and then an ice fog the next day. I’ve used this image on Christmas cards in the past!

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Sunday/Monday, July 5-6

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Read the whole thing — if only for the links!

… “Face masks, or the lack thereof, was an issue in 1918-1919 as well. People didn’t have enough masks, just as we didn’t at the start of this pandemic, and then when more masks were available, again like today, there was no national leadership on the importance of wearing them,” he said.” Some of the big male Hollywood stars saw wearing a mask as cowardly — they felt they’d look like a weakling if they wore a mask. Douglas Fairbanks attended a huge public rally and pointedly did not wear a mask.”…There was another 1918 mistake, which Mann in April warned authorities not to repeat, reopening too soon.

“Oftentimes these closings were lifted in 1918 way too soon People were still dying of this in March and April and May of 1919. Mary Pickford, who was the biggest movie star of the time, she gets it in early 1919, so the movie theaters would reopen and nobody would come and then they’d close as the death rate continued to climb,” he said. There needs to be a greater consistency — there is understanding, hopefully, that we’ve learned from 1918.”…

Most of today’s tweets will be below the fold, so that the wizards behind the screen can see if this helps with the slow / herky-jerking loading problem. Just click ‘more’, as you’ve been doing, for the rest!

Teaser for soccer fans: Human foosball pitch…

show full post on front page

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Late Night Open Thread: St. Ronnie’s Nightmare, Marching Through Georgia

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Will admit I’m curious as to how this is covered, once the Media Village Idiots trickle back from their vacations in the Hamptons or Montana. Per Newsweek, “Armed Black Militia Challenges White Nationalists at Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park”:

About 1,000 heavily armed militia, all of whom were Black, marched through Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park on Saturday, challenging white nationalist groups in the area to either come out and fight or join them in demonstrating against the government.

Stone Mountain State Park officials said the Black militia group was peaceful, orderly and escorted by police as they called for the removal of the country’s largest Confederate monument near Atlanta.

Videos posted to social media show the group, the “Not F**king Around Coalition” (NFAC), meeting at the massive nine-story quartz sculpting that depicts former Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Southern generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

NFAC Founder Grand Master Jay told Newsweek via phone Sunday that the militia members at Stone Mountain on Saturday were “100 percent Black” and they are not affiliated with Black Lives Matter. “We are a Black militia. We aren’t protesters, we aren’t demonstrators. We don’t come to sing, we don’t come to chant. That’s not what we do,” he said.

The NFAC head explained why several videos show the militia members alongside demonstrators earlier in the day before heading to Stone Mountain. Grand Master Jay told Newsweek the sister of Rayshard Brooks, who was killed outside an Atlanta Wendy’s by police last month, requested the NFAC militia provide her with a security escort to a downtown rally that began at the site of her brother’s death.

“Our initial goal was to have a formation of our militia in Stone Mountain to send a message that as long as you’re abolishing all these statues across the country, what about this one?” Grand Master Jay said, referencing the massive Confederate carving.

He added that he must commend Stone Mountain police for offering the all-Black militia support as they exercised their constitutional rights on July 4th…

John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, said the protests were orderly and acknowledged the Confederate monument is frequently used as a meeting place for far right-wing militia.

“It’s a public park, a state park. We have these protests on both sides of the issue from time to time. We respect people’s First Amendment right,” Bankhead told WXIA-TV. “We understand the sensitivities of the issue here at the park … so we respect that and allow them to come in as long as it’s peaceful, which it has been.”…

Gotta admit, these guys are hella more organized than the usual straggly mob of Threepers, ‘free speech libertarians’, Boogaloo Bois, and ammosexuals the media obediently documents threatening female governors and random public-health officials for the cameras. And to me, that makes them less frightening, because the NFAC members don’t seem as likely to shoot up the neighborhood ‘accidentally’ because they’re handling guns like they were playtoys…

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GOP Massive Fail Open Thread: The Lying in Winter

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This is not much more than an hour’s drive from Boston, and so will inevitably re-seed the pandemic in one of the few areas of the country that’s been managing to bend the curve downward. Massachusetts and Maine may have to erect physical barriers to (re)entry at our borders. Does this putz have a sponsorship deal with Covid-19?


The NYTimes — if not Chief Court Stenographer Haberman — has turned:

Standing in a packed amphitheater in front of Mount Rushmore for an Independence Day celebration, President Trump delivered a dark and divisive speech on Friday that cast his struggling effort to win a second term as a battle against a “new far-left fascism” seeking to wipe out the nation’s values and history.

With the coronavirus pandemic raging and his campaign faltering in the polls, his appearance amounted to a fiery reboot of his re-election effort, using the holiday and an official presidential address to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism…

The scene at Mount Rushmore was the latest sign of how Mr. Trump appears, by design or default, increasingly disconnected from the intense concern among Americans about the health crisis gripping the country. More than just a partisan rally, it underscored the extent to which Mr. Trump is appealing to a subset of Americans to carry him to a second term by changing the subject and appealing to fear and division…

Most politicians, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, this year were forgoing any of the traditional holiday parades and flag-waving appearances. The vast majority of fireworks displays in big cities and small rural towns have been canceled as new cases reported in the United States have increased by 90 percent in the past two weeks.

Mr. Trump’s itinerary Friday and Saturday, however, had a different message: The sparkly, booming show must go on at all costs in the service of the divisive message and powerful images he wants to promote…

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Trump has tried to bend events to his will, often using social media to drive home his alternate version of reality and, thanks to the power of repetition and the loyal support of his base, sometimes succeeding. But the president’s attempt to drive deeper into the culture wars around a national holiday, during an intensifying health crisis that will not yield to his tactics, risked coming across as out of sync with the concerned mood of the country at a moment when his re-election campaign is struggling and unfocused.

“I don’t think it will work, because what he is trying to do is pretend that the situation is better than it is,” Mr. Beschloss said.

Mr. Beschloss compared Mr. Trump to Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the influenza pandemic in 1918 by trying to pretend it was not happening, and to Herbert Hoover, who in 1932 tried to project that the Great Depression was not as bad as people were saying…

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Perry Mason – Conversation and Speculation

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For decades, my best friend and I have watched “event” TV together.  Masterpiece Mysteries, True Detective, Luther, Broadchurch.

But now we can’t watch TV together, and we can’t even watch together at a distance because he doesn’t even have a TV or HBO.

We talk about each episode together, talk about the show, speculate about what the look that character X gave to character Y meant, etc.

Anyone willing to be Perry Mason buddies in this thread?

Plus, I’m feeling pretty grim about the COVID situation right now, and a distraction would be wonderful. Episode 3 of Perry Mason starts tonight.  I’m already hoping that the 8-part series could return next year with a different case to be solved.

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Shit Is About to Go South in West Virginny

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Shit Is About to Go South in West Virginny

A combination of out of state visitors coming to WV for the holidays to raft/hike/atv, idiot students going to bars and gyms, morons heading to Myrtle Beach, SC and bringing back the plague, and people just generally easing up on cautionary behavior has set the stage for WV to blow up with the virus.

Y’all are about to witness what happens when one of the least healthy states in the country where half the population or more is elderly and/or has pre-existing conditions AND there are inadequate hospitals and medical facilities to handle normal health issues dives headfirst into the plague. As I write this, the park down the street from me is packed with people having picnics and throwing frisbee and playing baseball.

I’m so fucking disgusted.

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Rainy Day Birbs (Open Thread)

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It’s a rainy day here in Florida, which is a good excuse to stay home (as if any additional reasons were needed, with pestilence sweeping the land). Hummingbirds don’t have to worry about that. Here’s one taking a break from nectar-sipping activities and giving the paparazzi the side-eye:

Rainy Day Open Thread

Another hummingbird hard at work:

Rainy Day Open Thread 1

And here’s one resting for a few beats during a drizzle:

Rainy Day Birbs Open Thread

It’s a bit damp from the rain drops it couldn’t fly between.

That’s all I’ve got! Open thread.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: The Pollinator Series

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: The Pollinator Series

From our indefatigable and gifted Ozark Hillbilly:

Call this the Pollinator Series. Every flower has a pollinator, some are harder to find than others.

visit the spires

deep dive

lurker

OK OK, that last one isn’t exactly classified as a pollinator, but you should see the pollen fly when he runs thru the wildflowers after the frisbee.

***********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

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