Overheard

Most of the people who are addicted to conspiracy fantasies are driven by an immature self-regard. They think they deserve something better than reality. They think they're entitled to a much more exciting world than the actual one - a world in which they're smart and right.

You want a real world Hydra, so you can be the real world hero who defeats it? Who doesn't? That dream is so much more exciting and addressable than reality, which is mostly long stretches of tedium punctuated by crises in which most of the players are too busy covering their own asses - too busy weaponizing one of their own fuckups in order to deflect your outrage away from themselves and onto any of their preferred targets.

That's the grown up world, not the comic book universe these nonsense-worshippers are trying to make it. There is no SPECTRE, no SMERSH, no Global Jewish Cabal. And actually, the closest we get to a worldwide network of evildoers is the relatively small group of power-mad wannabe-conquerors who the conspiracy-driven meatheads are ultimately serving by chasing every stupid fantasy deeper and deeper into an endless rabbit warren of lies and delusion.

They're fighting the monsters of their own id.

hat tip = @AndyRichter

COVID-19 Update

New variants develop wherever there's a large unvaccinated population.

Three days ago:

And now, WaPo: (freebie)

Warnings omicron could reduce vaccine effectiveness spook global markets

Coronavirus vaccine maker Moderna set off alarm bells in financial markets Tuesday by warning that current vaccines may be less effective at combating the omicron variant compared with previous strains. “I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … [say] ‘this is not going to be good,’” Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s chief executive, told the Financial Times in an interview Tuesday.

U.S. stock benchmarks headed lower at the opening bell Tuesday morning. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.9 percent, shedding over 200 points, and the S&P 500 dropped 0.67 percent while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.4 percent.

Markets in Europe also slumped. U.S. oil prices dropped more than 3 percent and shares of airlines and cruise lines, considered some of the most vulnerable to virus-related disruptions, also took a dive in early trading.

Bancel also said the variant may mean that vaccines will need to be modified next year. Germany’s BioNTech and its partner Pfizer have said they are working to understand what level of protection their vaccines offer and how to adapt them. Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac says it is working with international partners to collect and analyze samples of omicron in an effort to determine how effective its inactivated vaccine, CoronaVac, is against the variant.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which makes the popular antibody cocktail used as a treatment on patients who have contracted covid-19, may be less effective against the omicron variant, its makers also said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, omicron is threatening the U.S. economy’s rebound and growth on a global scale, experts say. The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, warned in remarks prepared for congressional testimony Tuesday that “the recent rise in COVID-19 cases and the emergence of the Omicron variant pose downside risks to employment and economic activity and increased uncertainty for inflation.” He added that “greater concerns about the virus” could exacerbate existing problems, such as labor shortages and supply chain struggles.

Here’s what to know

• Although the omicron variant’s mutations have concerned scientists, much remains unknown about its tangible impact: “It’s a complete black box,” one virologist told The Washington Post.
• President Biden called the omicron coronavirus variant a “cause for concern” but “not a cause for panic.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly expanded its recommendations for booster shots, saying that all adults 18 and older should get them.
• South Africa, among the first countries to identify the variant, is preparing for a potential surge in infections. An epidemiologist there warned in a government briefing that the country could top 10,000 cases per day by the end of the week.

Today's Reddit

Close encounter of the dinosaur kind

COVID-19 Update

WaPo: (freebie)

The omicron coronavirus variant has been detected in Canada, the country’s health minister said Sunday, marking the first identification of the variant in North America as cases continue to emerge around the globe.

Two cases in Ontario were confirmed as the omicron variant, which has been called a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said.

What to know about the omicron variant

The variant has also been found in countries ranging from Australia to Israel, Botswana to Britain, since it was first detected in South Africa. Here’s where cases have been detected around the world.

“This clearly demonstrates the pandemic is not over,” Dominic Perrottet, the premier of Australia’s New South Wales state, told reporters Sunday after the variant was detected there. “There are limits to what the state and federal government can do: These variants will get into the country. It is inevitable.”

Here’s what to know

• The Biden administration is focusing on booster shots as the best strategy against the omicron variant in the United States.
• Restrictions meant to curb the spread of the variant are leaving international travelers stranded and angry.
• Officials are pointing to the variant as a product of global vaccine inequities.

Fun With The PDB

I don't know who came up with these, but they're brilliant and I wanna buy them a hot tub or something.

Today's Reddit

Trying this one more time. If the redditors delete it again, then all I can say is fuck you, Reddit.

An Example

The Daddy State Classics

Attempted turnaround
Pretending that science is fixed around policy, instead of policy being informed by science.

Accusation as confession
Saying the left is doing what the right makes a habit of doing.

The left generally makes a real effort to root their positions in fact. What can we deduce from the right's opposition?

Today's Tweet

Also today's eternal sadness.

A 5 year old child was killed in a home in Minnesota on Thanksgiving by a 13 year old making a video for social media. I do not see an end to gun violence in America, even though I am screaming that it has to stop. https://t.co/TLQWpkBkl6

— Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) November 28, 2021

COVID-19 Update

WaPo: (freebie)

As omicron variant is detected around the world, travel bans may be too late, experts say

As governments scrambled to close their borders to southern African countries as a shield against a potentially dangerous new coronavirus variant, experts warned the travel bans may be too late — with confirmed and suspected cases cropping up as far away as Asia and Australia.

The variant, dubbed omicron, has a high number of mutations that could make it more easily transmissible. It was identified by scientists in South Africa, where early data suggest it is spreading more quickly than the now-dominant variant known as delta. Several countries, including the United States, have curbed flights from the region while epidemiologists work to identify how far the variant may have spread.

“By the time we have enough information to institute a travel ban, the cat’s already out of the bag, so to speak,” Nicole A. Errett, a professor at the University of Washington who has done research on public health emergency preparedness, said in an email. “Omicron has already been detected in other continents. A travel ban could in theory buy some time by reducing the spread of new seed cases, but we are talking on the order of days to weeks,” she added.

What to know about the omicron variant of the coronavirus

Confirmed and suspected covid-19 cases caused by the new variant have been detected in a growing number of regions, including Britain, Belgium, Botswana, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Israel and the Czech Republic. Most of the cases outside Africa appear to involve people who had traveled to the continent.

Austria also joined the growing list of countries where the variant has been reported, detecting its first suspected case of the new variant in the Tirol region, Reuters reported Sunday, citing Austrian officials.

Authorities said in a statement that a traveler who returned from South Africa last week had tested positive for the coronavirus with indications of the new variant, though further sequencing will take place over the next few days to confirm the variant.

Earlier this month Austria became the first country in Europe to say it will mandate the coronavirus vaccine for everyone eligible and ordered a fourth national lockdown.

Two planes carrying about 600 passengers from South Africa landed in the Netherlands on Saturday with 61 people infected with the coronavirus — including 13 cases of the new omicron variant — Dutch health authorities said Sunday.

Health officials in Australia on Sunday confirmed two fully vaccinated, asymptomatic passengers on a flight into Sydney tested positive for the new coronavirus variant and are now in government isolation. They were among 14 people from southern Africa who arrived Saturday evening on a flight from Doha, Qatar, officials said. All 260 people aboard the plane are considered close contacts and have been ordered to self-quarantine. Canberra announced a two-week travel ban on nine southern African countries.

“This clearly demonstrates the pandemic is not over,” Dominic Perrottet, the premier of New South Wales state, home to Sydney, told reporters on Sunday. “There are limits to what the state and federal government can do: These variants will get into the country. It is inevitable.”

The emergence of a new and potentially more menacing variant raises questions about what lessons officials have learned in the past two years, and whether they’re prepared for worrisome mutations that could evade current vaccines.

In Britain, the former head of the government’s vaccine task force accused leaders of ignoring a plan to prepare for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants. Clive Dix, who chaired the vaccine task force until April, told the Guardian’s Observer that he wrote a “very specific proposal on what we should put in place right now for the emergence of any new virus that escaped the vaccine,” adding: “I haven’t seen a sign of any of those activities yet.”

On Sunday, Britain’s health secretary Sajid Javid said vaccines may be less effective against Omicron, admitting “we just don’t know enough” about the new variant to know for sure what the risk might be.

“There is reason to think that maybe, and I stress the word may, that this variant may turn out to make our vaccines less effective, it may not,” he told Sky News on Sunday as the government announced new measures to slow transmission of the virus.

From Tuesday, face masks will be compulsory in shops and on public transport in England. The U.K. will also require all international travelers to take a PCR test, which can detect the new variant, and to self-quarantine until results are returned.

Europe is in the grips of an increasingly deadly outbreak of the fast-spreading delta variant that has prompted officials in some countries to revert to measures such as lockdowns used to control the virus in the early days of the pandemic.

Singapore, which has been easing border restrictions, is watching the new omicron variant “very closely” and may be forced to roll back some easing measures, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a speech Sunday, Bloomberg reported.

White House officials said that the world’s failure to contain the rapid spread of delta this spring demonstrated the need to be vigilant in staving off omicron, which public health experts fear could sicken vaccinated people and spread more rapidly than delta.

In designating omicron a “variant of concern,” the World Health Organization said Friday that preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant for people who have previously had the virus, compared with other variants. However, there are also high rates of people living with HIV and AIDS in southern Africa, which experts said makes it harder to interpret the effectiveness of either vaccine-induced or natural immunity against infection.

U.S. officials said they quickly jumped into action after learning that the new variant contained long-feared mutations, such as the potential ability to evade vaccinations, and appeared to descend from a different genetic lineage than delta. Senior officials such as Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and others began discussions with government scientists, South African officials and vaccine manufacturers that intensified on Thanksgiving Day.

President Biden and White House officials this weekend also urged unvaccinated Americans to get inoculated and called on eligible adults to get booster shots, saying that the vaccines remain the best protection against the virus.

Only about 24 percent of South Africans are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University data, compared with nearly 60 percent of Americans.

“Every time the virus reproduces inside someone, there’s a chance of it mutating and a new variant emerging,” said Vinod Balasubramaniam, a virologist at Monash University in Malaysia. “The main way to stop variants is equal global vaccination. The emergence of omicron reminds us of how important that goal remains.”

The world’s major manufacturers of coronavirus vaccines, including Pfizer and BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac said they are working to investigate the new strain of the virus and adapt their shots if needed.

Experts cautioned that the flurry of activity to fight omicron may turn out to be largely unnecessary, as researchers learn in the coming days whether current vaccines can ward off the variant or successfully limit symptoms.

“Not all covid-19 variants cause trouble. For example, lambda and mu have not taken off globally. So it is possible that the new variant, omicron, could hopefully fizzle out,” said Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious diseases expert at the Australian National University.

Omicron’s emergence underscored the complexities countries face in trying to return to parts of pre-pandemic life alongside ongoing viral waves and variants.

In one encapsulating image, Czech President Milos Zemen ended his country’s weeks-long political crisis and swore in a new prime minister from behind a box of transparent panels on Sunday after Zemen, who has preexisting health problems, tested positive for the coronavirus last week.

The Continuing American Tragedy

This story perfectly illustrates the fallacy of "A Good Guy With A Gun".

Oh, you acted on impulse and did a little vigilante shit for us? Great - here's a fatal bullet wound in the back, courtesy of the cops you were "helping". Thanks. Anything you want us to tell your family?

A gun fight is ridiculously fluid and chaotic. The last thing the actual good guys need is for some random asshole with a gun and a Wyatt Earp complex to make it worse.

The Denver Post: (pay wall)

2 minutes, 20 gunshots, 3 dead: How the Olde Town Arvada shootings unfolded minute by minute

Law enforcement released some details over five months, but new documents paint fullest picture yet

Twenty gunshots exploded in Olde Town Arvada one Monday afternoon last June, shattering windows, killing three and undermining the sense of safety previously held by those who live and work nearby.

In less than two minutes, the scene turned from a pleasant summer day in suburbia to a cacophony of screams and sirens. Diners sitting outside restaurants in the Colorado sunshine heard shotgun pellets whiz by their ears. People in the busy commercial district hid behind dumpsters and in restaurant attics.

In the end, three men lay bleeding outside the library: a beloved police officer, a gunman intent on killing as many law enforcement officers as possible, and a nearby shopper with a legally concealed handgun who stepped in and prevented further bloodshed.

In the five months since the June 21 shootings, police and prosecutors have released information in fits and starts. But records obtained by The Denver Post after First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced on Nov. 8 that she would not prosecute the Arvada police officer who shot and killed “good Samaritan” Johnny Hurley offer the most complete picture of the chaos that day and how law enforcement responded.

The 1,090-page report includes interviews and accounts from dozens of law enforcement officers who responded to the scene as well as descriptions of radio traffic and witness interviews. Though Arvada police officers did not wear body cameras at the time of the shooting, The Post used the documents, surveillance videos and body camera footage from other responding agencies to piece together the following account of the chaotic scene.

“It was the absolute scariest thing I’ve been a part of in 15 years at this police department,” said one of the first officers on scene, whose name was redacted from the report. “I thought that I was going to have to either have to use lethal force or I was going to be murdered.”

One witness, a guitar teacher, told investigators he heard gunshots and saw Beesley fall. He fled as the sound of more gunfire echoed in the square.

“I was visualizing that Olde Town Square was a bloodbath,” the witness, whose name also was redacted, told police. “I was freaking out.”

- more -

The piece goes on to detail the kind of cluster fuck we all knew was coming. And what we all know this is bound to happen again and again until we figure out how to sit down and hash out a few sensible rules to govern the sick shit growing from the worship of guns and violence here in USAmerica Inc.