Aug 9, 2021
War Sucks
No matter what it's for, what's at stake, how it starts, how it's conducted, or even how it's ended - war sucks. Top to bottom. Side to side. Front to back.
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict.
In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 67 Japanese cities. The war in Europe concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: "Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon; and "Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and deployed to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". Japan ignored the ultimatum.
The consent of the United Kingdom was obtained for the bombing, as was required by the Quebec Agreement, and orders were issued on 25 July for atomic bombs to be used against Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. These targets were chosen because they were large urban areas that also held militarily significant facilities. On 6 August, a Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, to which Prime Minister Suzuki reiterated the Japanese government's commitment to ignore the Allies' demands and fight on. Three days later, a Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Over the next two to four months, the effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half occurred on the first day. For months afterward, large numbers of people continued to die from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. Most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.
Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the Soviet Union's declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war. Scholars have extensively studied the effects of the bombings on the social and political character of subsequent world history and popular culture, and there is still much debate concerning the ethical and legal justification for the bombings. Supporters believe that the atomic bombings were necessary to bring a swift end to the war with minimal casualties, while critics argue that the Japanese government could have been brought to surrender through other means, while highlighting the moral and ethical implications of nuclear weapons and the deaths caused to civilians.
World War II effectively "ended" at 2:47 PM Nagasaki time on this day in 1945, when USAmerica Inc dropped the second of two nuclear bombs on Japan.
In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign that devastated 67 Japanese cities. The war in Europe concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: "Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon; and "Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and deployed to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". Japan ignored the ultimatum.
The consent of the United Kingdom was obtained for the bombing, as was required by the Quebec Agreement, and orders were issued on 25 July for atomic bombs to be used against Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. These targets were chosen because they were large urban areas that also held militarily significant facilities. On 6 August, a Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, to which Prime Minister Suzuki reiterated the Japanese government's commitment to ignore the Allies' demands and fight on. Three days later, a Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Over the next two to four months, the effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half occurred on the first day. For months afterward, large numbers of people continued to die from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. Most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.
Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the Soviet Union's declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war. Scholars have extensively studied the effects of the bombings on the social and political character of subsequent world history and popular culture, and there is still much debate concerning the ethical and legal justification for the bombings. Supporters believe that the atomic bombings were necessary to bring a swift end to the war with minimal casualties, while critics argue that the Japanese government could have been brought to surrender through other means, while highlighting the moral and ethical implications of nuclear weapons and the deaths caused to civilians.
(with apologies to George Will):
War and football are both perfectly suited to what has become the American character - frequent regular outbreaks of violence punctuated by committee meetings, and the occasional public outcry over the wasteful brutality of it all.
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough, and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."
Ernest Hemingway
Today's Tweet
It’s as if Covid came along just in time to demoralize us about the chances that politicians would ever muster the courage to address climate change.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 9, 2021
COVID-19 Update
Yesterday, August 8, 2021
8,033 people were killed by COVID-19
99.996 % of them were not fully vaccinated
World
New Cases: 473,194 (⬆︎ .23%)
New Deaths: 9,033 (⬆︎ .19%)
USA
New Cases: 24,390 (⬆︎ .07%)
New Deaths: 129 (⬆︎ .02%)
USA Vaccination Scorecard
Total Vaccinations: 194.9 million (58.7%)
Fully Vaccinated: 165.5 million (50.1%)
One the thing I try to remember when I'm sorting through any kind of policy question is this: I'm not just making decisions that effect how my kids will live - I'm making decisions that could determine how they die.
Such things require considerable thought.
NYT: (pay wall)
‘This Is Really Scary’: Kids Struggle With Long Covid
Lingering physical, mental and neurological symptoms are affecting children as well as adults, including many who had mild reactions to the initial coronavirus infection.
Will Grogan stared blankly at his ninth-grade biology classwork. It was material he had mastered the day before, but it looked utterly unfamiliar.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blurted. His teacher and classmates reminded him how adeptly he’d answered questions about the topic during the previous class. “I’ve never seen this before,” he insisted, becoming so distressed that the teacher excused him to visit the school nurse.
The episode, earlier this year, was one of numerous cognitive mix-ups that plagued Will, 15, after he contracted the coronavirus in October, along with issues like fatigue and severe leg pain.
As young people across the country prepare to return to school, many are struggling to recover from lingering post-Covid neurological, physical or psychiatric symptoms. Often called “long Covid,” the symptoms and their duration vary, as does the severity.
Studies estimate long Covid may affect between 10 percent and 30 percent of adults infected with the coronavirus. Estimates from the handful of studies of children so far range widely. At an April congressional hearing, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, cited one study suggesting that between 11 percent and 15 percent of infected youths might “end up with this long-term consequence, which can be pretty devastating in terms of things like school performance.”
The challenges facing young patients come as pediatric Covid-19 cases rise sharply, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant and the fact that well under half of 12-to-17-year-olds are fully vaccinated and children under 12 are still ineligible for vaccines.
Doctors say even youths with mild or asymptomatic initial infections may experience long Covid: confounding, sometimes debilitating issues that disrupt their schooling, sleep, extracurricular activities and other aspects of life.
“The potential impact is huge,” said Dr. Avindra Nath, chief of infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “I mean, they’re in their formative years. Once you start falling behind, it’s very hard because the kids lose their own self-confidence too. It’s a downward spiral.”
Will, an Eagle Scout, a talented tennis player and a highly motivated student who loves studying languages so much that he takes both French and Arabic, said he used to feel “taking naps is a waste of sunlight.”
But Covid made him so fatigued that he could barely leave his bed for 35 days, and he was so dizzy that he had to sit to keep from fainting in the shower. When he returned to his Dallas high school classes, brain fog caused him to see “numbers floating off the page” in math, to forget to turn in a history paper on Japanese Samurai he’d written days earlier and to insert fragments of French into an English assignment.
“I handed it to my teacher, and she was like ‘Will, is this your scratch notes?’” said Will, adding that he worried: “Am I going to be able to be a good student ever again? Because this is really scary.”
‘We don’t have any sort of magic treatment’
Nearly 4.2 million young people in the United States have had Covid-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Relatively small percentages have been hospitalized for initial infections or developed a condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) that can emerge several weeks later. Doctors expect considerably more will experience long Covid.
At Boston Children’s Hospital, where a program draws long Covid patients from across the country, “we’re seeing things like fatigue, headaches, brain fog, memory and concentration difficulties, sleep disturbances, ongoing change in smell and taste,” said Dr. Molly Wilson-Murphy, a neuroinfectious diseases specialist there. She said most patients were “kids who had Covid and weren’t hospitalized, recovered at home, and then they have symptoms that just never go away — or they seem to get totally better and then a couple of weeks or a month or so after, they develop symptoms.”
Dr. Amanda Morrow, co-director of the pediatric post-Covid-19 clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, said getting treatment early might help recovery. Post-Covid clinics find they need multiple specialists and approaches including exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep modification and medication for issues such as respiratory and gastrointestinal problems.
“We don’t yet have any sort of good predictors of who will be affected, how much they’ll be affected and how quickly they’ll recover,” Dr. Wilson-Murphy said, adding “We don’t have any sort of magic treatment.”
Much about long Covid remains mysterious. Some symptoms resemble aftereffects of concussions and other brain injuries. Some, like post-exertional malaise — when physical or mental exertion increases exhaustion — echo symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, experts say.
Some patients develop Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS, which involves lightheadedness and racing heart rates upon standing up.
Some studies report higher proportions of older children with long-term issues. That might be because adolescents find some symptoms more disruptive or because after puberty, hormones might amplify immune responses, Dr. Nath said.
An April study by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found that 9.8 percent of 2-to-11-year-olds and 13 percent of 12-to-16-year-olds infected with the coronavirus reported continuing symptoms five weeks later. After 12 weeks, rates remained significant: 7.4 percent in the younger group and 8.2 percent in the older group.
In another U.K. study, 4.4 percent of 1,734 children had symptoms more than four weeks post-Covid, over four times as high as the percentage with symptoms four weeks after non-Covid illnesses like flu. About 2 percent of Covid patients had symptoms after eight weeks.
Many young patients were previously healthy, said Dr. Laura Malone, co-director of Kennedy Krieger’s program. Some doctors have seen some youths with long Covid who had previous issues like migraines or anxiety, but it’s unclear whether there’s any connection.
Before the pandemic, Sierra Trudeau was diagnosed with anxiety after her parents’ divorce, said her mother, Heather Trudeau. In May, six months after contracting the coronavirus, Sierra’s long Covid symptoms remained worrisome enough to make a 50-mile trip to Boston Children’s Hospital.
In an interview this spring, Sierra, 12, and her mother described Sierra’s fatigue, headaches, forgetfulness and other symptoms. Her mother asked Sierra: “Do you feel like it’s been worse for your anxiety, and like your mental health, like your emotions?”
“Yeah,” Sierra said softly.
“Everything makes her cry and that is not her,” Ms. Trudeau said. “It’s just been so hard.”
During that May appointment, which The New York Times observed, Dr. Jane Newburger, a vice chair of cardiology, told Sierra: “Part of what can happen is you feel rotten and so, you know, you sit all day. You get deconditioned, and you get into a little bit of a cycle where it’s hard to pull out.”
Still, Dr. Newburger said, “You can’t throw someone back into exercise because you’ll take one step forward and two backward.”
She said examinations of Sierra’s heart and other tests showed no notable physiological problems, similar to many post-Covid pediatric patients.
Dr. Nath said some issues might be caused by inflammation that damages blood vessels, including in the brain.
He said another theory was that “the immune system somehow gets deranged and then it’s hard to shut down,” or that residual virus or genetic fragments keep immune responses activated. “It’s like the song is gone, but the music lingers on,” he said.
One optimistic sign for Sierra was that her smell and taste returned this spring.
In late July, Ms. Trudeau said Sierra’s symptoms had improved, partly because of new antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications, although “her energy level still varies from day to day.”
‘Nothing like that has ever happened to me’
“Dang, why am I always so sick?” Messiah Rodriguez, 17, asked himself. Before getting Covid around Thanksgiving, he never had health problems, he and his mother, Kimmie Ezeike, said.
An energetic point guard and shooting guard on school and travel basketball teams, Messiah had to stop playing after running off the court and vomiting in his backpack during two games.
“Nothing like that has ever happened to me, and I’ve been playing sports my whole life,” he said. He tried basketball again recently, but experienced back pain and an orthopedist advised him to take another break.
“Messiah is probably one of the more affected kids I’ve seen,” said Dr. Alexandra Yonts, director of the Covid-19 Longitudinal Care Clinic at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Messiah has also developed mental health issues post-Covid and is taking medications for depression and anxiety and seeing a psychologist weekly.
“It’s kind of like social anxiety,” Messiah said. He used to be comfortable talking and socializing, but after Covid, he said, “I avoided people so I wouldn’t have to make conversation.”
He’s been diagnosed with adjustment disorder, a condition that Dr. Yonts described as the development of depression, anxiety or other psychiatric issues in response to major life events. In Messiah’s case, the trigger “might be Covid and the massive immune response that happens,” she said.
Eight months later, some of Messiah’s symptoms have eased. Others, like shortness of breath while climbing stairs, linger, his mother said.
In classes, Messiah, an honors student, said “my mind would kind of feel like it was going somewhere else.”
In a June appointment at Children’s National that the Times observed, Dr. Abigail Bosk, a rheumatologist, told him his post-Covid fatigue was more debilitating than simple tiredness. His athleticism, she said, should help recovery, but “it’s really not something you can push through.”
Dr. Yonts said Messiah’s treatment plan, including physical therapy,resembles concussion treatment. For the summer, she recommended “trying to give his brain a break, but also slowly build up the stamina for learning and thinking again.”
Messiah has maintained at least two hobbies: playing piano and writing poetry.
“I don’t want to float my boat, but I feel like I’m a pretty good writer,” he said. “I can still write. It’s just sometimes I’ve got to think harder than I usually had to.”
An excruciating cycle
Sometimes, Miya Walker feels like her old self. But after about four to six weeks, extreme fatigue and concentration difficulties strike again.
This roller coaster has lasted over a year. When she contracted Covid in June 2020, Miya, of Crofton, Md., was 14. In late August, she’ll turn 16.
Each time, “we thought, It’s going to be over,” her mother, Maisha Walker, said. “Then it just came again, and it was just so disappointing for her.”
“For some patients, we are seeing that the symptoms can be more cyclical,” said Dr. Malone of the Kennedy Krieger Institute. “With others, we’re seeing a slow gradual improvement over time.”
Since January, Miya has been a patient at Kennedy Krieger, which her mother said has provided “a big relief that we weren’t alone in this and this wasn’t in our head.”
Miya received tutoring and accommodations from teachers, but “her G.P.A. went drastically down” from her usual As and Bs, her mother said. In class, “it’s way easier to just space out when you’re exhausted,” said Miya, who also becomes “very dizzy, really easily.”
She recently enrolled in dance classes to resume her long-running passion for ballet, tap and other styles. But her doctors were concerned it might be too much for her body right now.
“It wasn’t a recommendation we took lightly because we know that dance gives her so much joy, which is also important to recovery,” Dr. Malone said.
Instead, she’s starting water physical therapy. “I really love dance a lot,” Miya said. “But I just can’t see myself bouncing back too quickly.”
‘A feeling of helplessness’
“The scariest part,” said Will, the Dallas teenager, was visiting doctors whose “answers were: ‘Hey, bud, take it easy. Go rest.’ I couldn’t blame them. That’s all they could tell me really.”
Will and his family puzzled and persisted.
“It’s so unknown, and it’s such a feeling of helplessness as a parent,” his mother, Whitney Grogan, said.
With some relaxed homework and testing requirements, Will maintained high grades. About six months post-infection, he made the varsity tennis team, but his typically excellent hand-eye coordination was off.
“I would just miss the ball completely,” he said. “And I’d be like, ‘Whoa, come on Will, what is happening?’”
His chest and left leg hurting, he visited Dr. Kathleen Bell, chairwoman of physical medicine and rehabilitation at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center. She recommended pushing enough but not too much. “We had to drag him back from over-practicing tennis,” she said.
Eventually, he played matches. His symptoms have largely improved, but he’s not yet 100 percent recovered.
“I’m not really a dramatic guy, but it’s turned me into much more of a worrier,” Will said. “My idea of Covid before I got it was, You know what, if I get it, I’ll get it over with and I’ll have the antibodies and I’ll be good. But oh, my gosh, I just never want to go through that again. Never.”
Aug 8, 2021
Overheard
Sometimes I get really pissed off because of the stoopid things people do, so I stop and ask myself - "what would god do?"
And then I try to drown them.
Jan6 Stuff
We all know there's never really an end to this kind of fuckery, but eventually, we'll come to the end of this particular outbreak and we'll know then: either our justice system works and there is this thing called The Rule Of Law, or we've managed again to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The insurrectionists only have to survive. And they'll try again.
Because this is an ongoing project. It's an insurrection in slow motion, being accomplished with pen and paper instead of with guns and ammo.
The attempted coup on Jan6 hasn't failed until we see a whole fucking battalion of high profile perps being frogged into prison yards.
Dana Bash on CNN:
NYT:
Former Acting Attorney General Testifies About Trump’s Efforts to Subvert Election
The testimony highlights the former president’s desire to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda.
Jeffrey A. Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the Trump administration, has told the Justice Department watchdog and congressional investigators that one of his deputies tried to help former President Donald J. Trump subvert the results of the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the interviews.
Mr. Rosen had a two-hour meeting on Friday with the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general and provided closed-door testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Saturday.
The investigations were opened after a New York Times article that detailed efforts by Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, to push top leaders to falsely and publicly assert that continuing election fraud investigations cast doubt on the Electoral College results. That prompted Mr. Trump to consider ousting Mr. Rosen and installing Mr. Clark at the top of the department to carry out that plan.
Mr. Trump never fired Mr. Rosen, but the plot highlights the former president’s desire to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda.
Mr. Clark, who did not respond to requests for comment, said in January that all of his official communications with the White House “were consistent with law,” and that he had engaged in “a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president.”
Mr. Rosen did not respond to requests for comment. The inspector general’s spokesman declined to comment.
Mr. Rosen has emerged as a key witness in multiple investigations that focus on Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the election. He has publicly stated that the Justice Department did not find enough fraud to affect the outcome of the election.
On Friday Mr. Rosen told investigators from the inspector general’s office about five encounters with Mr. Clark, including one in late December during which his deputy admitted to meeting with Mr. Trump and pledged that he would not do so again, according to a person familiar with the interview.
Mr. Rosen also described subsequent exchanges with Mr. Clark, who continued to press colleagues to make statements about the election that they found to be untrue, according to a person familiar with the interview.
He also discovered that Mr. Clark had been engaging in unauthorized conversations with Mr. Trump about ways to have the Justice Department publicly cast doubt on President Biden’s victory, particularly in battleground states that Mr. Trump was fixated on, like Georgia. Mr. Clark drafted a letter that he asked Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators, wrongly asserting that they should void Mr. Biden’s victory because the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in the state.
Such a letter would effectively undermine efforts by Mr. Clark’s colleagues to prevent the White House from overturning the election results, and Mr. Rosen and his top deputy, Richard P. Donoghue, rejected the proposal.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Mr. Rosen discussed previously reported episodes, including his interactions with Mr. Clark, with the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called Mr. Rosen’s account “dramatic evidence of how intent Trump was in overthrowing the election.”
Mr. Blumenthal was one of a handful of senators, including Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, and Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sat through most of Mr. Rosen’s more than six hours of testimony. Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the committee; Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa; Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota; Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, attended parts of the interview.
Mr. Blumenthal said Mr. Rosen presented new facts and evidence that led him to believe that the committee would need to answer “profound and important questions” about the roles that individuals in Mr. Trump’s orbit played in the effort to undermine the peaceful transition of power, “which is what Trump tried to do, intently and concertedly.”
As details of Mr. Clark’s actions emerge, it is unclear what, if any, consequences he could face. The Justice Department’s inspector general could make a determination about whether Mr. Clark crossed the line into potentially criminal behavior. In that case, the inspector general could refer the matter to federal prosecutors.
Mr. Rosen has spent much of the year in discussions with the Justice Department over what information he could provide to investigators, given that decision-making conversations between administration officials are usually kept confidential.
Douglas A. Collins, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said last week that the former president would not seek to bar former Justice Department officials from speaking with investigators. But Mr. Collins said he might take some undisclosed legal action if congressional investigators sought “privileged information.”
Mr. Rosen quickly scheduled interviews with congressional investigators to get as much of his version of events on the record before any players could ask the courts to block the proceedings, according to two people familiar with those discussions who are not authorized to speak about continuing investigations.
He also reached out directly to Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, and pledged to cooperate with his investigation, according to a person briefed on those talks.
One last thing - every time we turn around, some wingnut jagoff who seems intent on taking this democracy down floats out of the Federalist Society. Whether it's Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Barrett or Bill Barr or this latest asshole Jeff Clark - there's just too much shit coming out of that joint for them to have nice clean little noses.
Today's Tweet
Unfortunately, there's a lot of overlap between this issue and the guns issue, and we already know that the lives of children are less important to them than their political allegiance to the radical libertarian worldview.
We can still hope I guess.
if you watch one thing today please let it be this. pic.twitter.com/9ULtG6qOet
— Captain Jordy (@J_Mei21) August 6, 2021
Today's Eternal Sadness
The murderer had a history of violence, apparently due to mental health problems, and yet nobody could quite figure out that he might be a danger to himself and others, and that maybe he shouldn't be walking around waiting for something to set him off?
That in itself is worth looking into, but the thing that chaps my ass is the fact that the cop was killed with his own gun.
WaPo: (pay wall)
Phillip Brent said he was awoken early one April morning by word someone had broken into his home in an upscale Atlanta suburb. He was away, so he quickly dialed up video from the home’s surveillance cameras on his phone.
Brent said the video showed a masked man smashing through a back door with a sledgehammer. The intruder, who appeared armed with a crowbar, eventually left and pulled off his mask. Brent said he instantly recognized the face on the video.
He said it was a neighbor, Austin Lanz, 27; the same man the FBI said killed a Pentagon police officer without warning or provocation Tuesday on a Metro bus platform outside the military headquarters. Lanz also was killed.
Brent said the April break-in, which resulted in Lanz’s arrest, was the culmination of a long campaign of harassment by Lanz against him and his former fiancee, Eliza Wells. The couple didn’t know Lanz personally and still don’t fully grasp the reasoning behind his fixation on them.
What triggered his attack outside the Pentagon also remains unknown. In a statement released by Lanz’s family, his relatives offered condolences to the family of George Gonzalez, the slain Pentagon police officer, saying they were “sorry and heartbroken.” In an interview, the family’s attorney, Jimmy Berry, said the family knows of no motive for the attack.
It goes on - and gets creepier - but the point for me is that we're told over and over that having a gun is how you keep yourself safe. That officer had a gun. He was trained in how not to get shot with it. And he's unavailable for comment because he's fucking dead now.
Which brings me to this: Fuck the shooter - I don't wanna remember that prick. I don't wanna hear his name.
COVID-19 Update
Yesterday, August 7th, 2021
9,039 people were killed by COVID-19
99.996 % of them were not fully vaccinated
World
New Cases: 571,320 (⬆︎ .28%)
New Deaths: 9,039 (⬆︎ .21%)
USA
New Cases: 68,950 (⬆︎ .19%)
New Deaths: 320 (⬆︎ .05%)
USA Vaccination Scorecard
Total Vaccinations: 194.3 million (58.5%)
Fully Vaccinated: 166.2 million (50.1%)
Because I couldn't find one that depicted Pigpen as a biker...
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally revs up, drawing thousands and heightening delta superspreader fears
For the 700,000 people expected to descend on South Dakota’s Black Hills for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the slogan for this year’s event after a year of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns is: “We’re spreading our wings.”
“People want to escape,” said Jerry Cole, rally and events director for the city of Sturgis, “and they’re escaping to South Dakota.”
But as coronavirus cases increase because of the highly transmissible delta variant and the millions who remain unvaccinated, there is concern among health officials, residents and even attendees that one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the world, which began Friday, has the potential to become the latest superspreader event.
The 81st annual motorcycle rally comes a year after roughly 460,000 attendees shunned masks and social distancing at an event that researchers associated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded “had many characteristics of a superspreading event.” At least 649 covid-19 cases were linked to the Sturgis rally, but the true total was obscured because contact tracing was difficult after bikers returned to their home states.
Although Sturgis’s coronavirus case numbers are relatively low, the CDC has designated Meade County, which includes the city, as an area of “high community transmission,” advising residents or visitors to wear masks in public indoor spaces. About 37 percent of Meade County is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, and more than 47 percent of South Dakota was fully inoculated as of Friday. Fifty percent of all U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated.
Christina Steele, a spokeswoman for the city of Sturgis, told The Washington Post that the city is offering coronavirus tests, masks and hand sanitizer stations for anyone in town but that no mask mandate is in place. The city has also signed off on a temporary open-container ordinance in an effort to keep people outside instead of crowded together inside bars. Steele said those who are not vaccinated or who have certain underlying health conditions are putting themselves at risk but that the virus has not been a talking point among those who’ve flocked to the Black Hills.
“The people visiting have said they come from states that have been in lockdown for so long and they just want to have a normal summer vacation without the worries of last year,” Steele said. “People here don’t want to talk about covid. They want to have a good time.”
Local clinics are still offering vaccines, including Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot, to attendees who want to be vaccinated, she said. It can take weeks for a vaccine to strengthen a person’s immune system.
The concern over the coronavirus surge in Sturgis has not stopped Jeff Stultz from making the nearly 1,800-mile ride from Fayetteville, N.C., to attend the rally for the first time. Stultz, 58, is vaccinated but said his wife was recently infected at an event in Dallas despite also being immunized. Neither he nor his wife will be wearing a mask, he told The Post, because he thinks the vaccine is the ultimate defense against infection.
“I believe the vaccine really makes a difference,” said Stultz, the national director of Broken Chains, a Christian motorcycle group for recovering addicts. “The pandemic is horrible; I’m not someone who doesn’t believe that. I don’t want to get covid, but I’m not going to quit living my life when I’m taking the precaution that will save me.”
Others, however, mocked the pandemic, the vaccine or both, as they walked shoulder to shoulder along a jammed Main Street at the start of the rally. Several attendees interviewed by reporters said they had no plans to be vaccinated. One man who spoke to CNN was coughing as he tried to explain why he wouldn’t get inoculated, while another unvaccinated attendee said he was not too worried about contracting the virus: “If it happens, it happens.”
In nearby Rapid City, S.D., doctors are expecting a busy week of trauma cases related to the rally, and one fatal crash already has been reported. The surge in covid cases linked to the delta variant poses another formidable challenge for the already stressed hospitals, Shankar Kurra, vice president of medical affairs at Rapid City Hospital, told “CBS This Morning.”
“This could be a superspreader,” Kurra said. “We don’t want it to be, but that is the reality.”
Despite the potential for a surge in coronavirus cases, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) has given her blessing to the motorcycle rally. The governor is supporting the large crowds expected for a 10-day event that generates $800 million in sales for the local economy, according to South Dakota’s Department of Tourism.
“Bikers come here because they WANT to be here. And we love to see them!” Noem wrote on Facebook this week. “There’s a risk associated with everything that we do in life. Bikers get that better than anyone.”
But some residents of the city of roughly 7,000 are concerned that this year’s event, expected to be considerably larger than the 2020 edition, will lead to a jump in cases.
“The rally is a behemoth, and you cannot stop it,” resident Carol Fellner told the Associated Press. “I feel absolutely powerless.”
The Sturgis rally is the latest large outdoor event to take place during the fourth wave of the pandemic. Weeks after the Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA championship in 50 years, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services identified almost 500 people who contracted covid-19 after they celebrated with a sea of thousands of mostly maskless fans outside the arena. In Illinois, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District has asked the roughly 385,000 people who attended the Lollapalooza music festival to get tested for the virus. Those who went to the four-day festival in Chicago had to show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test from the previous 72 hours.
Similar screening precautions are not in effect for motorcycle attendees at a rally that features rock and country music from performers including ZZ Top, Kid Rock and Clint Black. Matt Farris, a Nashville country artist performing during the rally, said in an email that it’s been a dream of his to perform in Sturgis. He said he thinks the health and safety guidelines in place there will be enough to prevent a potential superspreader event.
“It’s called the land of [the] FREE for a reason and I think we all agree on that,” he wrote.
Rod Woodruff said that many out-of-town visitors have thanked Noem and Sturgis for giving them a place to go that lacks many of the coronavirus restrictions that are in place in other cities. Woodruff, 75, is celebrating his 40th year as president of the Sturgis Buffalo Chip, a campground that hosts a concert series during the rally that serves as “a tribute to true American freedom.” He told The Post that events like the motorcycle rally and Lollapalooza were examples of people rejecting politicians and health officials who have tried to curb the surge in cases in recent weeks.
“I expect that when you have a virus and a pandemic that is expanding, you’re going to have increased numbers, whether we have a party here or not,” Woodruff told The Post.
For Stultz, the estimated 80,000 miles he had accumulated on a motorcycle felt like more of a risk than attending the Sturgis rally. Seventy miles outside Sturgis on Friday, Stultz said he was carrying coronavirus tests with him in case he felt any symptoms or needed to go into quarantine. He’s hopeful others at the rally of hundreds of thousands will be as cautious as he is.
“The biker community thrives on freedom. I know there will be those ignoring the precautions, and I hate that,” he said. “I believe we should all do our part. The world is a tough enough place without covid.”
Aug 7, 2021
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