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Mar 20, 2022
Today's Tweet
The once and future Ukraine
We can't let these people down
🔊President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 20, 2022
We will win.
There will be new cities.
There will be new dreams.
There will be a new story.
There will be, there’s no doubt.
And those we've lost will be remembered.
And we will sing again, and we will celebrate anew. 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Oll5ZCfuxd
When It All Craters
Masha Gessen: possibly the most depressing commentator ever - but not without some pretty good reason for being that way.
It's a matter of survival for Russians to believe the false narrative of their Daddy State, but it goes beyond that - they're giving up on the idea that they have the ability to form their own opinion.
GOP's Useful Idiots
Putin
Russia
Qult45
Republicans
What was that thing about 4 horseman?
Madison Cawthorn Is A Star On Russian State TV
Useful idiots abound in the GOP. Putin-run TV welcomes them with open arms.
North Carolina's excuse for a congressman Madison Cawthorn made negative comments about Ukraine President Zelenskyy, and now those comments have been played by Russian state TV over and over again.
WRAL obtained a video of Cawthorn describing Zelenskyy as a thug.
Russian state TV is picking up all the insane and pro-Putin comments being made by Trump-loving Republicans in the House.
These eight congress critters voted against Ukraine and for Putin.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina
Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas
There are many names to call these enemies of the U.S. Constitution, masquerading as legislators. "The Kremlin Caucus," or the "Russia First" Caucus both fit.
I'm sure you can come up with a few.
As you can see Cawthorn is all over Russian TV, spreading the good word for Putin.
Never forget that Cawthorn (allegedly!) married a Russian honeypot, and they are now divorcing.
COVID-19 Update
The world is suffering from a kind of collective madness. And as clear as it ought to be by now - everybody's heard the term "disinformation", and we do understand at some level that we're being saturated with it 24/7 by some very cynical manipulators - I fear there's also a kind of Dunning-Krueger Effect at work that lets us insist that "we're just too darned smart to fall for any of that stuff - that's what all those dummies over there think, but not me by golly and blah blah blah".
This is basically Stochastic Terrorism on a global scale, and it manifests itself in some very odd ways - though, as usual, it's all pretty predictable in retrospect.
There's a vignette in Casablanca, where the young couple has escaped Bulgaria as fascism rises across Europe and they're trying to get passage to the US.
The money quote (at 0:55) - "...it's very bad there - the devil has the people by the throat.."
It'd be nice if we had the luxury of assuming we'll look back on all this and chuckle at how silly we were, and not be too angry at how stoopidly some of us behaved.
WaPo: (pay wall)
Local health officials report threats, vandalism and harassment during the pandemic, study finds
Local health officials handling the day-to-day response to the coronavirus crisis have faced hostility like never before, according to a new study of 1,499 episodes of harassment during the first year of the pandemic.
Of 583 local health departments surveyed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, 57 percent reported episodes of staff being targeted with personal threats, doxing, vandalism and other forms of harassment from 2020 to 2021.
From the early months of the pandemic, former president Donald Trump, Fox News personalities and right-wing commentators on social media unleashed a wave of criticism and specious claims against Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and many other officials who were promoting the use of face masks, vaccines, shutdown measures and social distancing.
Fauci has faced death threats and has been under stepped-up security protection since 2020. But the threats and denunciations are not limited to federal and state health officials.
Beth Resnick, assistant dean for public health practice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior author of the study, said federal and state officials are more accustomed to rolling with the punches of politics.
“But in these small communities, this is all brand new, it’s really shocking, and it’s never happened before,” Resnick said. For a local health department with two or three employees, losing any employee could be “devastating.”
The researchers found that 222 health officials left their posts at local or state health agencies, more than one-third of them alongside harassment reports. The pandemic’s strain was not the only reason for these departures, however, which also included chronic underfunding of health agencies and the increasing partisan polarization in public health.
Local health officials reported that they abruptly went from being viewed as trusted neighbors to bossy villains in some of their communities and that their expertise on other health issues such as extreme weather events and vaping injuries also had been eroded in the public eye.
“Particularly in rural communities, health officials described challenges in being the public representative of a policy that was not always within their authority to decide,” the study says.
“Think about if you’re in a small community and you go to the grocery store, and someone starts yelling at you,” Resnick said. “This is really detrimental to our field, to our culture, to our public health community.”
Experts said the findings, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, should serve as a wake-up call. The attacks on public health officials, and the ensuing staff drain and recruitment difficulties, may leave Americans more exposed to diseases, pandemics and other communal health risks, they said.
Michael Fraser, chief executive of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said health officials and agencies always have faced some measure of controversy, “but this has really become personal, it’s become dangerous — we have to have health officials with state police, with armed guards.”
Previously, the work of public health agencies was respected, Fraser said. “Now, folks are harassed, ridiculed, questioned for decisions based on the best science we have at the time,” he said.
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) in 2019 enlisted Amy Acton to be the state’s top health official. She soon became a lightning rod for criticism of the state’s decision to close businesses in the first year of the pandemic.
“After Acton, who is Jewish, mentioned hosting a virtual seder, for Passover, protesters showed up at her home, with guns, wearing MAGA caps and carrying ‘TRUMP’ flags,” according to the New Yorker magazine. “Their signs read ‘Dr. Amy Over-re-ACTON’ and ‘Let Freedom Work.’ They brought their children. … Acton was assigned executive protection — a rare measure, for a public-health official — along with a retinue of state troopers.” She left the post in June 2020. DeWine announced a replacement, but that person withdrew the same day of the announcement, citing concerns for her family.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2020, three doctors noted that political leaders could help tone down the rhetoric but that Trump and conservatives “have displayed hostility toward experts inside and outside of government.”
“Social media amplifies such attacks, with the #FireFauci campaign providing an early template,” the doctors wrote. “Joining these attacks may be an easy outlet for people under stress from economic disruption and social isolation. One Facebook network of 22,000 users organized protests on the front lawns of health officers.”
An analysis by Temple University’s Center for Public Health Law Research showed that by late last year, at least 19 states had restricted state or local authorities from safeguarding public health amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a potential presidential candidate in 2024, has appointed a state surgeon general who says coronavirus vaccines should not be given to healthy children, contrary to the scientific community’s recommendation. A county health commissioner backed by Republicans in Idaho has recommended ivermectin for covid-19 patients and advises against vaccination, defying well-established science in both cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed 26,174 state, tribal, local and territorial public health workers, finding in a December study that 53 percent “reported symptoms of at least one mental health condition in the past 2 weeks,” including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or suicidal thoughts. More than 92 percent of people who took the survey said they had been working on covid-19.
“Traumatic and stressful work experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic might have played a role in elevating the risk for experiencing symptoms of PTSD among public health workers,” the CDC study says. Twelve percent of public health officials reported receiving job-related threats because of work, and 23 percent said they felt bullied, threatened or harassed because of work.
Fraser said the attacks on public-health officials were a symptom of something larger: distrust in government. Francis S. Collins, who until recently was director of the National Institutes of Health, said he, too, has received threats.
“It’s not been serious enough so far for me to require the same kind of 24-hour security detail that Dr. Fauci requires,” Collins told The Washington Post last year. “Those who are doing so really ought to stop and ask yourselves, ‘What am I doing here? Why is this the right thing to do?’”
Today's Quote
Going out to all the Billionaires, Plutocrats, and Oligarchs
“That which exists beyond measure,
Mar 19, 2022
COVID-19 Update
The BA.2 surge is kind of a thing right now, as the 7-Day Average on World New Cases shows an uptick.
...but...
WaPo:
Vaccines remained highly effective at preventing serious illness and death during omicron surge, CDC report says
The coronavirus vaccines most widely used in the United States remained highly effective at preventing the worst outcomes from infections even in the face of the highly transmissible omicron variant in January, a report released Friday by federal disease trackers shows.
While protection against mild illness waned over time, the mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech provided a robust shield against death and needing mechanical ventilation, the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
The study bolsters confidence in the vaccines to prevent the most serious outcomes for covid-19 patients, even after the omicron variant fueled an increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths this winter, said William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who did not participate in the study.
Although some fully vaccinated and boosted people came down with mild infections during the omicron surge, the study showed that the vaccines — and especially the booster shot — protected most people from the virus’s worst effects.
“Three doses was better than two — this report highlights the value of the third booster dose,” Moss said.
As omicron became the dominant variant, the vaccine was 79 percent effective in preventing ventilation or death for people who received the initial series of two doses. The benefit was even greater for people who received a booster shot: During that same time period, the vaccine was 94 percent effective for those people.
“Anybody who is skeptical really needs to look at that number and think, ‘Okay, maybe I’m going to get a cold and feel sick, but 94 percent of the time, I’m not going to get put on a ventilator or die,’” said Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The study comes as Pfizer and Moderna this week asked the Food and Drug Administration to consider authorizing a second booster shot following data published in Israel that showed vaccine effectiveness decreased as omicron surged. Pfizer requested the FDA allow adults 65 and older to get a second booster; Moderna asked regulators to authorize an additional booster for all eligible adults to allow flexibility for the CDC and health-care providers to determine which patients make good candidates for another dose.
If the FDA authorizes an additional booster shot, CDC advisers would weigh in on who should get the extra dose, and the CDC director would have the final say over those recommendations.
The CDC study published Friday looked at cases reported at 21 hospitals across 18 states between March 11, 2021, and Jan. 24, which gives insight into vaccine effectiveness against the alpha, delta and omicron variants. The study also focused specifically on how the vaccines fared when omicron was ascendant.
Infectious-disease experts say the study offers a thorough and up-to-date analysis of vaccine effectiveness, and can help researchers, doctors and policymakers better understand how the vaccines fared against omicron.
“This is such solid information that reinforces the current recommendation to get vaccinated and boosted — and [the vaccine] worked for omicron,” said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville who was not involved in the CDC report. “This is solid gold.”
Still, vaccine and booster effectiveness are known to wane after several months, as levels of neutralizing antibodies steadily decline. The latest data published by the CDC on death rates showed that unvaccinated people who became infected were nine times more likely to die than fully vaccinated people who had not received a booster, a drop from about 19 times more likely in early December. Unvaccinated people in January were 21 times more likely to die than people who got a booster shot, a drop from more than 60 times more likely to die in early December.
The study also found that protection against ventilation and death remained high regardless of which variant was dominant. Even when omicron caused a larger number of infections among those who had received shots, vaccinated and boosted individuals were far less likely to end up on ventilators or die.
“These vaccines will continue to prevent serious disease caused by the most dominant variant that’s out there today, which is omicron,” Schaffner said. “It is reassuring that all of these variants were well-protected by the vaccines.”
Experts say an additional booster shot could help curb the worst effects of the virus as immunity decreases over time, especially for older people and those with underlying health conditions or compromised immune systems. As concerns mount that a new variant called BA.2, a close cousin of omicron, could be gaining traction in the United States, some infectious-disease specialists say a second booster might keep hospitalizations and deaths lower.
“It wasn’t included in these studies, but nonetheless, every indication that we have is that the vaccines will continue to provide very, very good protection against serious disease, even against BA.2,” Schaffner said.
The War In Front Of Us
Leigh McGowan - Politics Girl - We are at war with Russia, we've been at war with Russia for a while, and we've lost some important early battles.
Accusing the other side of doing what you're doing is also a good way to inoculate yourself. Republicans make a big noise about fraud and vote switching, which is rebutted by the Dems as silly because it's nonexistent, and then when it's discovered that Repubs are doing just that, and the Dems complain, then Repubs can play the video of Dems knocking down such accusations. A fair bunch of people are going to be just confused enough to stay frozen in the middle, so you can continue doing the divide-n-conquer thing.
And if I may: I think what's happening goes well beyond Putin's petty ambitions to reconstitute the USSR - it all fits with my personal paranoia about an effort to pull down all democratic self-governing countries in order to create a global stateless plutocracy.
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On Losing The Bugs
I'm a gadget freak. I especially love tech that marries two or more disparate things to synthesize something new.
What I don't particularly like is when the nerds (god love 'em) start thinking we can actually come up with some new technology in literally a few decades that can replace what Mother Earth has given us over literally millions of millennia.
So while I'm not willing to dismiss all of this as wishful thinking - I actually wish the nerds every success - I won't stop thinking we'd best be addressing the problems of over-population and fouling the nest more directly - and very rapidly.
What Will Replace Insects When They're Gone?
The collapse of the insect population could unravel ecosystems. Scientists wonder if robots and drones could stop the gap.
It’s easy to foresee how diminishing supplies of certain foods and crashing wildlife populations will heap cascading suffering on the poor and vulnerable, given the lopsided nature of societies, and perhaps even stoke embers of resentment and nationalism as foundational resources become scarcer. It’s also reasonable to anticipate that we will reflexively grasp for a technological fix to the mess we’ve created.
Expectation is already being ladled upon projects, still in their infancy, to create genetically modified pollinators resistant to disease and chemicals or to fashion machines topped with tiny cannons that fire pollen at plants and therefore address some of the causes of the climate collapse. Other scientists have turned their ingenuity to replicating the form and function of winged insects—researchers at Harvard University have devised diminutive robots that can swim before exploding out of the water into flight, using soft artificial muscles to harmlessly bounce off walls and other obstacles. Counterparts in the Netherlands have taken inspiration from the humble fruit fly, re-creating the motion of their rapid wing beats in a robot with wings made of mylar, the material used in space blankets. The Delft University of Technology’s DelFly can hover, flip 360 degrees around pitch and roll axes, and accelerate to the speed of a human sprint within a few seconds.
Matej Karásek, a researcher working on the project, says he’s long been fascinated by the agility and spatial awareness of insects, even before he started working on the DelFly. “Whenever I walk outdoors and I see an insect I think ‘how are they able to do this?’ ” he says. Karásek’s robots aren’t an exact substitute for a fly or bee—for one thing they have a 33-centimeter (13-inch) wingspan, making them 55 times the size of a fruit fly—and the conundrum of carrying large pollen payloads without losing maneuverability means they aren’t quite ready to hum alongside the real thing. But there is confidence that day will arrive, drawn from the certainty many of us have that technology will eventually solve all of society’s intractable ills.
Perhaps the answer will be an army of larger hexacopter-like drones, such as the fleet operated by US company Dropcopter, which autonomously pollinated an orchard of apples in New York for the first time in 2018. Or maybe the answer is a sophisticated robotic arm, which, using cameras, wheels, and artificial intelligence, can locate and hand-pollinate plants without getting tired or bored like human workers. The US Department of Agriculture is funding one such effort, which, according to one of its leading experts, Manoj Karkee of Washington State University, promises to be a “genuine replacement for the natural pollination process” and is even “expected to be as effective or even more effective than natural pollinators like bees.”
Entomologists are instinctively disdainful of any suggestion that pollinating insects could somehow be matched by technology, even on a basic logistical level. Biologist Dave Goulson points out that bees are rather adept at pollinating flowers, given they’ve been honing their skills for around 120 million years, and that, besides, there are around 80 million honeybee hives in the world, each stuffed with tens of thousands of bees feeding and breeding for free. “What would the cost be of replacing them with robots?” Goulson asks. “It is remarkable hubris to think that we can improve on that.” To be fair to those devoted to appropriating the characteristics of insects for our use, there is widespread awe at the evolutionary brilliance of flies and bees and scant joy at the crisis that has brought us to the point where the meanderings of academic curiosity are being seized upon as possible salvation from our degenerate ways. When we consider technological solutions, we should perhaps spend less time judging the supply and more time judging the reasons why there’s demand in the first place.
Still, a less abusive association with insects will have to include some new ideas. If we are to intensively farm smaller areas in order to surrender space to the wilds, the advance of vertical farming, with year-round crops stacked in warehouses and shipping containers using LED lighting and hydroponics instead of soils and pesticides will potentially work well teamed with robotic pollinators if the original insect version demurs from the task.
Perhaps the answer will be an army of larger hexacopter-like drones, such as the fleet operated by US company Dropcopter, which autonomously pollinated an orchard of apples in New York for the first time in 2018. Or maybe the answer is a sophisticated robotic arm, which, using cameras, wheels, and artificial intelligence, can locate and hand-pollinate plants without getting tired or bored like human workers. The US Department of Agriculture is funding one such effort, which, according to one of its leading experts, Manoj Karkee of Washington State University, promises to be a “genuine replacement for the natural pollination process” and is even “expected to be as effective or even more effective than natural pollinators like bees.”
Entomologists are instinctively disdainful of any suggestion that pollinating insects could somehow be matched by technology, even on a basic logistical level. Biologist Dave Goulson points out that bees are rather adept at pollinating flowers, given they’ve been honing their skills for around 120 million years, and that, besides, there are around 80 million honeybee hives in the world, each stuffed with tens of thousands of bees feeding and breeding for free. “What would the cost be of replacing them with robots?” Goulson asks. “It is remarkable hubris to think that we can improve on that.” To be fair to those devoted to appropriating the characteristics of insects for our use, there is widespread awe at the evolutionary brilliance of flies and bees and scant joy at the crisis that has brought us to the point where the meanderings of academic curiosity are being seized upon as possible salvation from our degenerate ways. When we consider technological solutions, we should perhaps spend less time judging the supply and more time judging the reasons why there’s demand in the first place.
Still, a less abusive association with insects will have to include some new ideas. If we are to intensively farm smaller areas in order to surrender space to the wilds, the advance of vertical farming, with year-round crops stacked in warehouses and shipping containers using LED lighting and hydroponics instead of soils and pesticides will potentially work well teamed with robotic pollinators if the original insect version demurs from the task.
Western societies may also have to grapple with the counterintuitive concept of eating insects as a way of saving them. The vast tracts of land we’ve turned into biodiversity deserts are in many cases not even directly feeding people—a third of all viable cropland is used to produce feed for livestock, which themselves take up a quarter of the planet’s ice-free habitat. Mealworms and crickets, both excellent sources of protein that can multiply to enormous numbers in tight spaces, are a less destructive alternative to traditional Western diets and would help ease agricultural-driven pressures that blight insects, such as climate change, chemical use, and land degradation. “There are far fewer environmental problems when you eat insects. They are also delicious,” says Arnold van Huis, a Dutch entomologist who has dined on 20 species of insects, his favorites being roasted termites and locusts, deep-fried and served with chili.
One day, perhaps robot bees could help prop up our food supply, and a revolution in the way we eat could help slow the accelerating ruination of the world’s glorious archive of life. But our measures of success in averting the insect crisis should be set a little higher than that. After all, we aren’t going to witness the last insect blink out, as we will with the final northern white rhinoceros or Bengal tiger. Whatever further cruelties we inflict, there will always be insects somewhere, crawling on a windowsill plant box in Chicago, nibbling at the edge of a rice paddy in Vietnam, scurrying away from flames licking at gum trees in Australia.
The tragedy will be how impoverished we will become, environmentally, spiritually, morally. Bumblebees, it has been discovered, can be taught to play football, will give up sleep to care for their hive’s young, and can remember good and bad experiences, hinting at a form of consciousness. The violin beetle is remarkably shaped, as the name suggests, like a violin, and side-on is almost invisibly flat. The monarch butterfly is beautiful and can taste nectar through its feet. We won’t lose every single thing, but that is of scant consolation when such marvels are being ripped away. “The future is a very simplified global biota,” says entomologist David Wagner. “We will have bugs, but we will lose the big gaudy things. Our children will have a diminished world. That’s what we are giving them.”
A penurious existence, one where the marrow of life has been sucked from the bones of our surroundings, of a becalmed countryside save for the machines eking food from the remaining soils, may be one of the better scenarios facing us if the crashing of insects’ tiny empires isn’t heeded. The latest research shows that the loss of bees is already starting to limit the supply of key food crops, such as apples, blueberries, and cherries. Insect-eating birds are now declining not only in the featureless fields of France but even in remote parts of the Amazon rainforest. Many insect populations around the world are falling by 1 to 2 percent a year, Wagner and colleagues confirmed recently, a trend he describes as “frightening.” It can, and almost certainly will, get worse. This catastrophe will plunge to some sort of nadir, although we do not appear to be close to that point yet. We’re still on the downward slope, to somewhere.
One day, perhaps robot bees could help prop up our food supply, and a revolution in the way we eat could help slow the accelerating ruination of the world’s glorious archive of life. But our measures of success in averting the insect crisis should be set a little higher than that. After all, we aren’t going to witness the last insect blink out, as we will with the final northern white rhinoceros or Bengal tiger. Whatever further cruelties we inflict, there will always be insects somewhere, crawling on a windowsill plant box in Chicago, nibbling at the edge of a rice paddy in Vietnam, scurrying away from flames licking at gum trees in Australia.
The tragedy will be how impoverished we will become, environmentally, spiritually, morally. Bumblebees, it has been discovered, can be taught to play football, will give up sleep to care for their hive’s young, and can remember good and bad experiences, hinting at a form of consciousness. The violin beetle is remarkably shaped, as the name suggests, like a violin, and side-on is almost invisibly flat. The monarch butterfly is beautiful and can taste nectar through its feet. We won’t lose every single thing, but that is of scant consolation when such marvels are being ripped away. “The future is a very simplified global biota,” says entomologist David Wagner. “We will have bugs, but we will lose the big gaudy things. Our children will have a diminished world. That’s what we are giving them.”
A penurious existence, one where the marrow of life has been sucked from the bones of our surroundings, of a becalmed countryside save for the machines eking food from the remaining soils, may be one of the better scenarios facing us if the crashing of insects’ tiny empires isn’t heeded. The latest research shows that the loss of bees is already starting to limit the supply of key food crops, such as apples, blueberries, and cherries. Insect-eating birds are now declining not only in the featureless fields of France but even in remote parts of the Amazon rainforest. Many insect populations around the world are falling by 1 to 2 percent a year, Wagner and colleagues confirmed recently, a trend he describes as “frightening.” It can, and almost certainly will, get worse. This catastrophe will plunge to some sort of nadir, although we do not appear to be close to that point yet. We’re still on the downward slope, to somewhere.
Mar 18, 2022
Following Up
Some days ago, reporter/producer Marina Ovsyannikova broke the rules and went all anti-war on live Russian TV.
She's been fined ₽30,000, which is about $283, which amounts to a little less than ⅓ her monthly salary.
That doesn't sound all that bad, but there's also the little matter of an impending criminal investigation that could put her in prison for 15 years.
That is Mr Putin's Russia.
She's a shero. Especially as she (inadvertently) points out the near-perfectly parallel tracks between Russians who support Putin's war because they swallow the propaganda on Channel 1, and the Americans who can't quite decide whether or not to rationalize an excuse for Putin's war because they can't get shed of the bullshit being shoveled into their heads by Qult45 and DumFux News every day.
Here's some rubes
There's some rubes
Everywhere there's fuckin' rubes
Chistiane Amanpour - CNN:
Today's Quote
The philosophies we hold, and the policies we put in place because of those philosophies, don't just determine how our children and grandchildren will live, but how they will die.
Today's Wingnut Redux
You don't get to spout "America First" practically every time you open your tater trap, and then claim you don't have anything to do with the racist assholes who spout "America First" every time they open their tater traps.
That's what we call some primo Daddy State gaslighting.
Idaho Lt Gov Janice McGeachin caught some flak for her little sortie into Racist Asshole Country, and then she back-peddled trying to downplay the thing, but then, in almost perfect accordance with the standard playbook, she reversed field again and doubled down.
Right Wing Watch:
A news report:
Here's a little taste of that special brand of racist bullshit Nick Fuentes dishes all day every day.
COVID-19 Update
We could be in for a spring surge.
The 7-Day Average for New Deaths dipped below 900 for the first time since last summer.
But it's still really frustrating to see the reported numbers being rather wildly disparate between Worldometer, Johns-Hopkins and the CDC.
For the last coupla days, I've plugged in the number of New Deaths reported by Worldometer (which has been on the low end), and we're on track to go over a million dead Americans in the next two weeks - April Fools Day.
So, as usual, it seems like nobody knows one fuckin' thing about one fuckin' thing.
Putin's Problems
For 20 years, Vladimir Putin has been at the top of a power structure typical of corrupt autocracies. He got there and stayed there by twisting and warping himself and the people around him so everything can be smash-fit into his own fucked up fantasy of reconstituting the Russian empire - or whatever it is that drives his ambitions.
A coupla pieces from MSNBC that help illustrate what's happening, which could indicate that Mr Putin's dream is nearly at an end.
(paraphrasing) "Eventually his advisers will bring knives instead of news"
RUSSIAN SPRING IS COMING
ПРИБЛИЖАЕТСЯ РУССКАЯ ВЕСНА
Mar 17, 2022
COVID-19 Update
The numbers are kinda all over the map.
Opinion: Two years into covid-19, has Congress learned nothing?
By Leana S. Wen
The United States is experiencing a relative lull in covid-19 infections. This is the ideal time to prepare for the next surge, which is what the Biden administration is trying to do. It has asked Congress for a reasonable $22.5 billion to purchase treatments, secure boosters and ensure that there is sufficient testing in case of new variants. This is a tiny fraction of the nearly $6 trillion allocated thus far on pandemic relief and will surely pay for itself many times over.
The White House’s request was negotiated down to $15.6 billion in Congress, but even that compromise amount was stripped from the omnibus spending package last week after objections from both Republicans and Democrats. A standalone bill for supplemental funding has been introduced in the House, but it currently lacks the support to pass the Senate.
This is a devastating turn of events with immediate consequences. The most directly impacted are the 7 million Americans who are moderately or severely immunocompromised and millions more who are elderly with underlying medical conditions. The pathway out of the pandemic for these individuals is prompt diagnosis and early treatment, so that contracting the coronavirus no longer needs to be a potential death sentence.
That’s precisely what’s at risk if Congress does not provide supplemental funding. The White House has said that it cannot purchase additional oral antiviral pills including Paxlovid, the promising treatment from Pfizer that reduces the rate of hospitalization and death by about 90 percent. Monoclonal antibodies are another effective covid-19 treatment, but the administration’s own fact sheet states starkly that “the federal government has no more funding for additional monoclonals, including a planned order for March 25.” Beginning next week, it will have to ration the already limited supply and cut state allocations by more than 30 percent.
Immunocompromised patients have another lifeline, AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, which essentially provides antibodies to people who can’t make enough of their own. In studies of vulnerable individuals, Evusheld reduces the risk of developing covid-19 infection by 77 percent. Yet the Biden administration has been able to purchase only enough to fully treat 850,000 people. It had plans to move forward with another allotment later this month but won’t be able to do so without the requested funding.
Congressional inaction means that millions of vulnerable citizens will be left to fend for themselves. Many of these individuals have done everything right and, like everyone else, just want to get back to doing the things they love. But it seems lawmakers are willing to relegate them to continued fear and prolonged isolation. What an indictment of our society it would be if our leaders allow those with the greatest need to suffer instead of funding treatments that would dramatically reduce their risk of severe illness and death.
I can’t help but wonder whether Congress would be so slow to approve funding if we were still in midst of the omicron surge. Perhaps legislators are waiting for another crisis before committing resources. That kind of thinking reflects a total misunderstanding of how public health works. By the time a new worrying variant arises, our window for prevention will be closed. A new surge could see us scrambling to reestablish testing sites that shuttered without sustained resources. It takes months to contract with manufacturers and ramp up testing and treatment.
And that doesn’t even begin to address the possibility that we might need more vaccines. Right now, the federal government doesn’t have the funding to purchase fourth doses for all Americans, much less to develop and distribute variant-specific boosters if they are needed.
The next surge might not be too far off. Britain, Germany and some other European countries are seeing a worrisome uptick in cases. The refugee crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to outbreaks in Eastern Europe. China is just beginning its omicron wave and is already recording its highest case counts since the pandemic began. And although reported infections continue to decline in the United States, the early detection system of wastewater surveillance is raising flags with more than a third of sites seeing increases.
I still believe it was the right call to lift mask mandates and allow individuals who can to enjoy this period of relative calm. But leaders are supposed to use this lull to prepare for what’s next, because we know it’s only a matter of time before the next emergency arrives. And we’ve already seen what happens when we don’t prioritize preparedness and prevention.
Nearly 1 million Americans have already died from covid-19. How many more must die before Congress heeds the lessons learned?
Today's Tweet
Klitschko had a reputation for fighting a little dirty - that's a pretty big plus for the job he has to do now.
— Chris Reason (@ChrisReason7) March 16, 2022
Mar 16, 2022
Warm Air Intrusions
WaPo: (pay wall)
Arctic temperatures could approach the melting point as they surge nearly 50 degrees above normal
A record-breaking “bomb cyclone” that began its development over the U.S. East Coast on Friday is bringing an exceptional insurgence of mild air to the Arctic. Temperatures around 50 degrees (28 Celsius) above normal could visit the North Pole on Wednesday, climbing to near the freezing mark.
It’s a highly unusual and extreme bout of circumstances, particularly considering the North Pole is still in a nearly six-month period of darkness known as “polar night.” The sun doesn’t fully rise above the horizon between fall and spring equinoxes, contributing to the bone-chilling temperatures customary to the inhospitable region.
Highs in the lower 30s (0 Celsius) are not terribly unusual in the summertime, but they’re far from the norm in winter. The mild temperatures are also accompanied by liquid rain at far northern latitudes, hastening the seasonal melting of sea ice.
“Looking back over the last few decades, we can clearly see a trend in warming, particularly in the 'cold season’ in the Arctic,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute, wrote in an email. “It’s not surprising that warm air is busting through into the Arctic this year. In general we expect to see more and more of these events in the future.”
Temperatures averaged over the high Arctic north of 80 degrees latitude are about 25 degrees (14 Celsius) above normal. Some forecast models indicate small areas in the Arctic, including near the North Pole, could experience temperatures as much as 45 to 54 degrees (25 to 30 Celsius) above normal Wednesday and Thursday.
In Hopen, an island off Svalbard in the Barents Sea at 76 degrees north latitude, the temperature recently hit 39 degrees (3.9 Celsius), its highest March temperature on record.
A record ‘bomb cyclone’ drags warmth northward
Mottram connected the intrusion of warm air to an atmospheric river — or concentrated jet of moisture — steered north by the bomb cyclone. A bomb cyclone is a storm or zone of low pressure that intensifies at breakneck speed.
The cyclone formed along the U.S. East Coast on Friday and Saturday, unleashing heavy snow and strong winds. Next, on Sunday and Monday, it tore through Atlantic Canada, where its pressure plummeted to that found at the core of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Then it swept toward Greenland.
It appears that a new record has been set for lowest pressure on record anywhere in Greenland at 934.1 hPa measured at the [Danish Meteorological Institute] station at Ikermiuarssuk,” Mottram said. The pressure reading hasn’t been officially certified as a record, but Mottram notes that it is consistent with other observations and model forecasts.
Average sea-level air pressure is closer to 1,000 hPa (hectoPascals); the resulting deficit was akin to removing 6.6 percent of the atmosphere’s mass from the middle of the storm — hence the strong inward winds aimed at “filling the void.” That entrained a strip of warm, moisture-rich air or atmospheric river that snaked poleward.
The NOAA HySplit model, which calculates the trajectories that air took to reach its destination, reveals that the air mass trucked north by the bomb cyclone curled east of Greenland and over Iceland during the weekend. Weather models indicate the same plume of warmth will reach the North Pole on Wednesday with temperatures between 29 and 33 degrees (near 0 Celsius).
Researchers probe Arctic warmth as sea ice levels hover at record lows
It just so happens that a team of research scientists studying warm air intrusions has been stationed at Kiruna in northern Sweden waiting for an event like this. Since Saturday, they’ve been flying a specially outfitted German aircraft called HALO, or High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft, between the North Pole and the approaching warm plume. The parent study is known as HALO-(AC)³. It is being steered by researchers from the University of Leipzig in Germany and involves multiple European meteorological institutions.
“This is exactly the situation we aim to cover with the ongoing 6-weeks campaign,” the team said in a statement via email. “We are trying to put together some of the puzzle pieces of the so-called ‘Arctic Amplification’ (stronger warming of the Arctic compared to [mean] global warming). And warm air intrusions are actually one of the candidates to explain this phenomenon.”
The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet, and atmospheric scientists are trying to better understand the processes contributing to such swiftly rising temperatures.
Thus far, the team has observed a number of phenomena that display telltale climate implications, many of which have been spurred by the sudden warm-up.
“For example, heavy rain over sea ice,” wrote the team. “This might have serious implications on a possible early melting of the sea ice, and this in the mid of March!”
The team also encountered tall convective clouds, or clouds energized by vertical heat transfer in the atmosphere. Some had blossomed almost as tall as clouds usually found in the tropics.
“Surface temperatures in the Fram Strait are currently more than 20 degrees Celsius higher than expected from the long-term records,” the team continued. “It is not just the intensity of the current warm air intrusion, but also the duration, which seems unusual. There are indications from forecast products that the sea ice will be seriously disturbed by this massive warming event.”
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, current sea ice extent, defined as the area with at least 15 percent sea ice coverage, is scraping the bottom of the barrel. At present, it’s on pace to fall below the record minimum set in summer of 2012, which may occur if current trends continue. About 14.6 million square kilometers are iced over, compared with a mid-March average of 15.5 million square kilometers.
Temperatures in the Arctic will fall to some extent by Thursday, but they look to remain unusually mild still over the next week.
The pulse of warmth over the Arctic is one of many that have swelled over the region in recent decades. A 2017 study found warm winter events in the Arctic are becoming more frequent and longer lasting. From 1980 to 2016, an additional six warming events occurred per winter at the North Pole, lasting on average 12 hours longer, compared with the period from 1893 to 1979.
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