New Vaccine Development ... from Defense research (!)

Farflung correspondents: 

There have been quite a few unsourced rumors about an "all Coronavirus" or "all SARS" vaccine in development, but here's some fairly concrete news, and, for a change, it's at least somewhat encouraging, albeit preliminary. 

 https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/12/us-army-creates-single-vaccine-effective-against-all-covid-sars-variants/360089/

grinchy note in counterpoint with my more hopeful previous note

Y'all know the song It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas? Well, this year I'm thinking I'll write a new song, It sure ain't lookin' nuttin' like Christmas. I think we're all sick to tears of pandemics, crazy people running a political party... oh, you name it. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, nonetheless. 

Omicron news

I'm sure I'll be accused of grasping at straws, but I follow Josh Marshall's summaries of his wide sampling of literature on COVID developments. While he notes that the spread of Omicron is really, really fast; much faster than all previous variants (so we can expect it to be everywhere in the next two to three weeks)... note this: 

The more reassuring news is that we now have a growing body of evidence that this wave produces significantly less mortality and hospitalization as a percentage of cases than previous waves. Whether that is because this variant is intrinsically less lethal or because it's spreading so rapidly through a population where the overwhelming majority of people have some level of immunity is not clear. But the precise mechanism seems secondary to the observed fact. It's also true that at least in South Africa the outbreak in Gauteng province peaked after roughly four weeks – about half as long as previous outbreaks. These are both encouraging signs.

The usual view seems to be that this thing is so contagious, and so able to break through and cause at least some infection even in vaccinated people, that everyone should just expect to get COVID in the next few months. Not everyone will, and for the great majority if they do it will be mild and not require hospitalization or be a real threat to life, but this is spreading so fast and spiking infection rates so high that unless you go into lockdown, which most people are just too weary to do again, getting sick is fairly likely. Fortunately, the real threat of this pandemic has been greatly mitigated by the vaccines, and that remains true. 

Of course the corollary of that, for people with friends or relatives who are not vaccinated, is that for them, there's a world of hurt still to come. 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/twilight-of-delta

In the bleak midwinter

Farflung correspondents, 

So today is the actual solstice, the winter of our discontent, the bleakest and shortest day of the year. Here's to everyone having wonderful holiday coming up and for much better 2022. The late John McCain used to like to say it's always darkest before it's pitch black (I never quote him for anything else, but that's a pretty good line).... but I am hopeful that some things in our political, environmental and public health worlds that seem pretty dire right now may turn out not to be quite as bad as we think right now. 

Take care everyone. 

2 thoughts on BBB/Manchin

Not exactly profound, but if you have any doubt that Manchin is not really a Democrat, consider the fact that he didn't even call Biden or Schumer, and he made his death announcement on F*ing Fox News. We never did have a genuine majority in the Senate, and we should proceed on that basis. I rest my case. 

Second point. Can't help but wonder. Is there something, anything that might induce Lisa Murkowski to change parties, or at least change her vote? She is literally the only Republican I can think of who might conceivably do that. Collins, I'm pretty sure, is far too bought and paid for. And, literally, Portman? nah... Romney?... good luck with that.... there are no others. 

Manchin the program killer

Let me just say this. Now that it's clear that Joe Manchin has torpedoed the Democratic agenda, let's face facts. Manchin is a f*king liar. He strung other Democrats including the president along for months and months, got everything he said he wanted, then said, F*k you, the answer is no anyway. I suspect there's no point in attempting to negotiate with him further. The sad truth is that we Democrats only thought we ever had a Democratic majority in the Senate. Manchin is not and never was a Democrat. He's a mole, taking orders from McConnell. Our system of disproportionate representation in the Senate is now being shown up for what it is: a fatal flaw in our system that makes long term minoritarian rule not only possible but inevitable. 

Nonetheless, although the way forward looks pretty bleak, I think it's time to start delivering the message that Democrats have great ideas and can put them in effect, but only if voters give us majorities. We cannot pass legislation in the face of unified opposition from the Insurrectionist party and no majority in the Senate. Sadly. 

cars

When I was a kid and "into cars" (like all boys were supposed to be), I thought this 

1964 Plymouth Valiant

... was a big improvement on this 

1962 Valiant (not Plymouth, just Valiant)

... designed by the legendary Virgil Exner. I thought the boxy 64 model, which was also the basis of the Barracuda, was "sleeker" and "more modern." Tastes change. I now see the original Valiant as what the Studebaker Lark was supposed to be, and a real classy design. They're rare now. When I was in high school, you could buy one with its legendary half-million mile slant six engine, for about $450. Now, if it's got a decent body and not too torn up, they're about $11,000, more than five times what they cost new. 

Holy shit.

But I'm glad someone's thinking about the unthinkable in the military. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/17/eaton-taguba-anderson-generals-military/ 

Some musings on possible long term futures etc.

I wrote this to a polymath friend of mine who's mostly interested in history, law and politics (and to a lesser extent, religion), but is also a gamer, a Tolkien fan, and a reader of science fiction. (Which, mostly, I no longer read because I find it too arbitrarily fantastical, for the same reason I rarely enjoy fantasy). It was part of a far ranging dialog that is still ongoing. Anyway, some of my farflung correspondents will find this familiar (overly familiar perhaps) territory from me, others just won't be interested, and to those readers, I recommend the delete button. Not everyone is interested in everything. 

§§

Talking of science fiction, vs. potential real futures, may I make one or two possibly obvious points that sci fi almost always ignores? If you have reason to disagree with any of this, I'd be interested in why. 

I.    The speed of light is pretty slow from the point of view of creatures wanting to create interstellar civilizations, or even just seed life to other stars' systems. And this will never change. We must adapt to the necessity of very long travel times between stars, which will limit our capability to grow, but not prevent interstellar colonization and development. It will prevent the development of a "galactic village," because there is no way around the fact that it takes 100,000 years to send so much as a telegram from one edge of the galaxy to the other. (Communication takes almost as long as transportation, with c the limit). We will never be a cohesive galactic empire. But we may, nonetheless, fill up our whole galaxy and even beyond with advanced life from Earth, assuming (as I tend to) that we don't find competitors nearby. 

Forget about the Alcubierre warp drive or any other means of FTL. They all take either infinite energy or necessitate the conversion of matter and information into the deeply scrambled quantum goo that is what happens to ordinary matter and energy near singularities. FTL is impossible because it violates causation and the speed of light is an essential characteristic of all matter and energy. There is no way around it and never will be. If you think "science delves into the unknown and perhaps they'll solve this someday," I have two reasons why this is not the case. Science does delve into the unknown. It isn't really concerned with accumulating "truth," and anywhere near its frontiers it doesn't do that too well, which is why new theories are almost always wrong, at least in some details, and people get the impression that science is just another religion. It's not. It's a method. And it does build up a body of "knowns." Newton wasn't wrong. F does equal ma in the realm of physics we actually live in. Einstein expanded on that, but in context, Newton is still true. Thing about the speed of light is that it's everywhere. It's in all the relativity equations, all the quantum equations. The universe as we see it stretching out to the visible horizon (and it continues far beyond) could not exist if it were possible for ordinary matter with mass to translate at speeds faster than c.

The second reason is Fermi.* This is purely observational. We look out and we're looking back in time. So 5 billion light years out we're looking at a universe only a bit more than half as old as the one we're living in. Beyond that are more and more galaxies, but we don't see much detail. What we don't see anywhere is evidence of super advanced technological civilizations. Do they exist? Who knows. Maybe. But, even 5 billion years ago, if a civilization figured out how to make starships that could travel FTL, they would've had all that time to colonize all the galaxies between here and there, but the light from their galaxy would only now be reaching us. So we only know about the rough present relatively nearby. EXCEPT, we can be pretty damn sure that no one, anywhere near here, has figured out how to travel FTL, because if they had, I'm pretty sure they would be here now. And they aren't. Spiral galaxies are all much the same, and there's a whole hell of a lot of them. If even one in a million spawns a tech civilization, and such civilizations behave as you'd expect, exploring exponentially (OK, that's not a given but seems pretty likely given how all life seems to behave), there would be an enormous number of inhabited galaxies, from a small number of discrete origins of life. There may well be tech civilizations, but they don't expand or travel FTL. And since conditions in galaxies have been much as they are now for at least half the time the universe has existed, many of them would likely be immensely old. I would not be surprised if we eventually find evidence of very ancient galactic civilizations out there, even without FTL, because, as noted, interstellar colonization and even galactic colonization is still possible; it's just a lot slower. So we will not be visited by them or they by us, ever. (Eventually the accelerating expansion of the universe will cause even relatively nearby galaxies to be invisible to each other anyway, but that's a long time in the future). 

 The same rationale means that it's highly unlikely that a spacefaring civilization already exists in the Milky Way. Because we (humans and our successors) will likely visit every single star system (at least with robot probes) within just a few million years at most, if we succeed. And I'm pretty sure if that had ever happened before, we would know about it and our reality would be completely different. If this isn't clear, think about this. Let's say we develop a tech solar system civilization and begin building starships, with the grand plan to replicate the process, star by star, until we've visited and/or colonized all 200+ billion systems in the Milky Way. How long would that take? I won't even try to do the math (others have), but even if it's just one begets two, or even 1.1, and each one takes 1,000 years, the entire galaxy could be Earthized in less than 20 million years. Probably a lot less. That's how long hominids have already existed on Earth. If we did it in two million years (possible, but would require a bit more energetic development), that's only as long as the genus Homo has already existed. And it's a teeny fraction of the length of time that the galaxy has been more or less like it is now, with stars and planets, some of them potential abodes of life and all of them potential sites for technological life. We will likely do this if we don't die first. So the conclusion that in all that time no one has come along with this same capability (at least in this galaxy) seems pretty inescapable. If another civilization were out there in this galaxy now at roughly our same level, it would be a coincidence akin to winning the Irish Sweepstakes three times in a row. 

II. Energy will cease to be the issue, in terms of habitability. You've probably heard about Dyson swarms and ringworlds and all that, which is interesting and probably quite real as a potential. We can construct huge structures and live in them. (BTW, you didn't take large scale rotation as a substitute for gravity into account; it will almost certainly be used to make large structures habitable). If you want a big technological community, better to keep everyone close. The problem won't be getting enough energy, because we will figure out fusion and the star already leaks out huge amounts we can harness. Possibly dark matter or other unknown physics will yield new sources of energy, but even if they don't, this is all possible. A harder problem is waste heat. It will literally be hugely difficult to keep habitats with trillions of beings (even cyber beings) from getting too hot to function. But that's soluble, too. We will build systems to keep the inner system cool by transporting and radiating waste heat, although this actually is a hard limit to growth. (We should look harder for infrared "stars"... they could be civilizations). But space migration is its own imperative. I can't give you a reason why an advanced civilization would want to spread its version of life and explore the galaxy and even beyond, except that it's what we do. It's who we are. It is possible, and if we don't die, we'll do it. (We, including our successors who may not resemble us that closely). 

☻§

*Reference is to the Fermi Paradox. In 1950 the eminent Italian American physicist Enrico Fermi interjected in a conversation with colleagues about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, something like If they exist, where are they? Which is a much more intractable question than it may seem. Because peace to all saucerheads, but they very, very definitely are NOT here. 

More on possibility that Omicron is more transmissible but less virulent

Still very preliminary, and too early for any firm conclusions, but here is at least a hint of how it might be that Omicron, while more transmissible and at least somewhat more vaccine resistant, may actually cause less severe illness than previous variants. As I've noted before, even if this turns out not to be the case with Omicron, this kind of mutation to less virulence is actually how viral epidemics tend to end naturally, so it will not be surprising, now or later, if this happens with COVID. 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/covid-notes-1 

Read David Wallace Wells on the Omicron Wave(s)

I repeat my several times stated opinion that spending the cost of just one or two F-35s to vaccinate the entire world would be the most cost effective and worthwhile investment our government could make right now. Yes, I know that would not directly impact the Omicron wave(s) that much, but it would do more than anything else to help put COVID 19 in the rear view mirror. 

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/can-anything-stop-the-omicron-wave.html 

Re: Pandemic trumps economy apparently

I think he should write and publish a book. I'd buy it.

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 4:09 PM Martin Ballard <martin.booe@gmail.com> wrote:

I would like to motion that David found a discord room or thread or whatever. https://discord.com/ 

I actually want to know his take on a turn of events before anybody else. 

Having said that, maybe I should investigate what's involved. 

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:19 PM F Johnson <fhoozit@gmail.com> wrote:

David,

This is so on target!  Don't waste it!  

By that I mean, send this and some of your other thoughts (always well written, I might add) to high-profile people in the Dem. Party -- e.g., your Representative, your Senators, the chair of your State Democratic Party, the chair of the DNC, others who have some clout in the party -- and in letters to the editor, and the like.  Maybe you already do all that.  If so, bravo, kudos, keep it up!  If not, start to do it.  Just maybe someone with vision will see it and it will spark something in what I have to call our creaky old Party.  (That's a paraphrase of something Archbishop Tutu once said.)

The Democratic Party's biggest failing is that it doesn't know how to illuminate and sell the facts in a way that publicizes the truth and drives it home with the voters.  The Republicans are better at selling lies than we are at selling the truth!  If we take a look at the preceding sentence, we have to ask ourselves, who has the better product??!!

I know that similar thoughts are being expressed in all kinds of editorials and commentary in progressive newspapers and media, certainly in the ones I read or access.  But the Party still isn't getting it.  It can't hurt for them to hear it from multiple sources.

Anyway, thanks for this and keep up the good work.

Fred

(The Rev. Fred H. Johnson, Jr.)

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:55 PM JEAN SMTH <jean316@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Agree! We can't let the former guy weasel his way back into our White House

~ Jean Clare Smith, MD, MPH

Decatur, GA

On Dec 10, 2021, at 9:40 AM, David Studhalter (ds@gyromantic.com) <oldionus@gmail.com> wrote:



If you think the psychology of the continuing pandemic isn't having a devastating political effect, then how can you account for the fact that the first three quarters had a real GDP growth rate of 7.8%, higher than in decades, in other words an economy roaring back.... but the Democrats are unable to make that seem like good news and turn any credit electorally from the economic policy changes they passed? Which are obviously working? Usually when record numbers of people feel secure enough to quit jobs, knowing it's easy to get another job, that's called "boom times" and everyone is fat and happy. 

Of course, the pandemic policies of the Biden administration have been vastly superior to those of the former guy as well, but the real truth is that presidents and even governments can't actually control pandemics. There are points to criticize, but much of what has happened since Biden took office in this sphere is beyond anyone's control. 

Sure supply chain problems persist for certain imported goods, but the reality is that just about anyone who wants to work can get a job, most commodities, in particular food, are readily available and, despite inflation, people are buying what they want. Yet most people when asked think the economy is bad and blame Biden. 

Democrats had better figure out how to turn around the messaging on all this or we're in for a world of hurt come the midterms. 

--

Fred Hoyer Johnson Jr

--

Martin Booe

Bias in the grey lady? Could it be?

OK, so call me biased, which is what I accuse the New York Times of. Why, I ask, is it necessary to run yet another multipart piece on the end of the Afghanistan war, replete with innate distortion coming from overemphasis on what in the end was a reasonably orderly ending, something that is never orderly? If not, in some misguided interest in "balance," to show the Biden administration in a bad light? This while the other party really is in the midst of a full scale slow-motion coup, which should be screamed from the headlines every day? 00

Re: Pandemic trumps economy apparently

I would like to motion that David found a discord room or thread or whatever. https://discord.com/ 

I actually want to know his take on a turn of events before anybody else. 

Having said that, maybe I should investigate what's involved. 

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:19 PM F Johnson <fhoozit@gmail.com> wrote:

David,

This is so on target!  Don't waste it!  

By that I mean, send this and some of your other thoughts (always well written, I might add) to high-profile people in the Dem. Party -- e.g., your Representative, your Senators, the chair of your State Democratic Party, the chair of the DNC, others who have some clout in the party -- and in letters to the editor, and the like.  Maybe you already do all that.  If so, bravo, kudos, keep it up!  If not, start to do it.  Just maybe someone with vision will see it and it will spark something in what I have to call our creaky old Party.  (That's a paraphrase of something Archbishop Tutu once said.)

The Democratic Party's biggest failing is that it doesn't know how to illuminate and sell the facts in a way that publicizes the truth and drives it home with the voters.  The Republicans are better at selling lies than we are at selling the truth!  If we take a look at the preceding sentence, we have to ask ourselves, who has the better product??!!

I know that similar thoughts are being expressed in all kinds of editorials and commentary in progressive newspapers and media, certainly in the ones I read or access.  But the Party still isn't getting it.  It can't hurt for them to hear it from multiple sources.

Anyway, thanks for this and keep up the good work.

Fred

(The Rev. Fred H. Johnson, Jr.)

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:55 PM JEAN SMTH <jean316@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Agree! We can't let the former guy weasel his way back into our White House

~ Jean Clare Smith, MD, MPH

Decatur, GA

On Dec 10, 2021, at 9:40 AM, David Studhalter (ds@gyromantic.com) <oldionus@gmail.com> wrote:



If you think the psychology of the continuing pandemic isn't having a devastating political effect, then how can you account for the fact that the first three quarters had a real GDP growth rate of 7.8%, higher than in decades, in other words an economy roaring back.... but the Democrats are unable to make that seem like good news and turn any credit electorally from the economic policy changes they passed? Which are obviously working? Usually when record numbers of people feel secure enough to quit jobs, knowing it's easy to get another job, that's called "boom times" and everyone is fat and happy. 

Of course, the pandemic policies of the Biden administration have been vastly superior to those of the former guy as well, but the real truth is that presidents and even governments can't actually control pandemics. There are points to criticize, but much of what has happened since Biden took office in this sphere is beyond anyone's control. 

Sure supply chain problems persist for certain imported goods, but the reality is that just about anyone who wants to work can get a job, most commodities, in particular food, are readily available and, despite inflation, people are buying what they want. Yet most people when asked think the economy is bad and blame Biden. 

Democrats had better figure out how to turn around the messaging on all this or we're in for a world of hurt come the midterms. 

--

Fred Hoyer Johnson Jr

--

Martin Booe

Re: Pandemic trumps economy apparently

David,

This is so on target!  Don't waste it!  

By that I mean, send this and some of your other thoughts (always well written, I might add) to high-profile people in the Dem. Party -- e.g., your Representative, your Senators, the chair of your State Democratic Party, the chair of the DNC, others who have some clout in the party -- and in letters to the editor, and the like.  Maybe you already do all that.  If so, bravo, kudos, keep it up!  If not, start to do it.  Just maybe someone with vision will see it and it will spark something in what I have to call our creaky old Party.  (That's a paraphrase of something Archbishop Tutu once said.)

The Democratic Party's biggest failing is that it doesn't know how to illuminate and sell the facts in a way that publicizes the truth and drives it home with the voters.  The Republicans are better at selling lies than we are at selling the truth!  If we take a look at the preceding sentence, we have to ask ourselves, who has the better product??!!

I know that similar thoughts are being expressed in all kinds of editorials and commentary in progressive newspapers and media, certainly in the ones I read or access.  But the Party still isn't getting it.  It can't hurt for them to hear it from multiple sources.

Anyway, thanks for this and keep up the good work.

Fred

(The Rev. Fred H. Johnson, Jr.)

On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:55 PM JEAN SMTH <jean316@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Agree! We can't let the former guy weasel his way back into our White House

~ Jean Clare Smith, MD, MPH

Decatur, GA

On Dec 10, 2021, at 9:40 AM, David Studhalter (ds@gyromantic.com) <oldionus@gmail.com> wrote:



If you think the psychology of the continuing pandemic isn't having a devastating political effect, then how can you account for the fact that the first three quarters had a real GDP growth rate of 7.8%, higher than in decades, in other words an economy roaring back.... but the Democrats are unable to make that seem like good news and turn any credit electorally from the economic policy changes they passed? Which are obviously working? Usually when record numbers of people feel secure enough to quit jobs, knowing it's easy to get another job, that's called "boom times" and everyone is fat and happy. 

Of course, the pandemic policies of the Biden administration have been vastly superior to those of the former guy as well, but the real truth is that presidents and even governments can't actually control pandemics. There are points to criticize, but much of what has happened since Biden took office in this sphere is beyond anyone's control. 

Sure supply chain problems persist for certain imported goods, but the reality is that just about anyone who wants to work can get a job, most commodities, in particular food, are readily available and, despite inflation, people are buying what they want. Yet most people when asked think the economy is bad and blame Biden. 

Democrats had better figure out how to turn around the messaging on all this or we're in for a world of hurt come the midterms. 

--

Fred Hoyer Johnson Jr

Re: Pandemic trumps economy apparently

Agree! We can't let the former guy weasel his way back into our White House

~ Jean Clare Smith, MD, MPH

Decatur, GA

On Dec 10, 2021, at 9:40 AM, David Studhalter (ds@gyromantic.com) <oldionus@gmail.com> wrote:



If you think the psychology of the continuing pandemic isn't having a devastating political effect, then how can you account for the fact that the first three quarters had a real GDP growth rate of 7.8%, higher than in decades, in other words an economy roaring back.... but the Democrats are unable to make that seem like good news and turn any credit electorally from the economic policy changes they passed? Which are obviously working? Usually when record numbers of people feel secure enough to quit jobs, knowing it's easy to get another job, that's called "boom times" and everyone is fat and happy. 

Of course, the pandemic policies of the Biden administration have been vastly superior to those of the former guy as well, but the real truth is that presidents and even governments can't actually control pandemics. There are points to criticize, but much of what has happened since Biden took office in this sphere is beyond anyone's control. 

Sure supply chain problems persist for certain imported goods, but the reality is that just about anyone who wants to work can get a job, most commodities, in particular food, are readily available and, despite inflation, people are buying what they want. Yet most people when asked think the economy is bad and blame Biden. 

Democrats had better figure out how to turn around the messaging on all this or we're in for a world of hurt come the midterms. 

Pandemic trumps economy apparently

If you think the psychology of the continuing pandemic isn't having a devastating political effect, then how can you account for the fact that the first three quarters had a real GDP growth rate of 7.8%, higher than in decades, in other words an economy roaring back.... but the Democrats are unable to make that seem like good news and turn any credit electorally from the economic policy changes they passed? Which are obviously working? Usually when record numbers of people feel secure enough to quit jobs, knowing it's easy to get another job, that's called "boom times" and everyone is fat and happy. 

Of course, the pandemic policies of the Biden administration have been vastly superior to those of the former guy as well, but the real truth is that presidents and even governments can't actually control pandemics. There are points to criticize, but much of what has happened since Biden took office in this sphere is beyond anyone's control. 

Sure supply chain problems persist for certain imported goods, but the reality is that just about anyone who wants to work can get a job, most commodities, in particular food, are readily available and, despite inflation, people are buying what they want. Yet most people when asked think the economy is bad and blame Biden. 

Democrats had better figure out how to turn around the messaging on all this or we're in for a world of hurt come the midterms. 

Pearl Harbor 80th anniversary

Surprised at myself that I let the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor go unremarked. I remember the 25th anniversary, my Japanese American gym teacher conscripted to serve as health teacher announced a pop quiz with the quip that "The Japanese strike every 25 years." Wasn't funny then, or now; but then, neither was the fact that he and his parents had been interned at Manzanar in the Owens Valley, east of the Sierra Nevada during the war that followed Pearl Harbor. A fact which I didn't know or appreciate at the time. Humans have a remarkable ability to act inhumanely towards one another, for justifications that in the end vanish like the ill winds they were. 

More thoughts on omicron and the possible future of COVID

Still too early to draw any conclusions or make plans based on these reports, but here is another report indicating that clinicians on the ground are finding the Omicron variant more contagious but less severe. "Contagious" may include vaccine resistant, but that's not as clear. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/world/africa/omicron-coronavirus-research-spread.html 

One thing that may not be particularly intuitive is that, generally, extreme pathogenic virulence confers no selective advantage on a virus or other pathogen. A less deadly form of the same organism may, in fact usually does, survive better, because killing your hosts is not usually a recipe for long term genotype survival. So it may well happen, as has often happened in the past, that a form that is more transmissible, and more immune resistant, but substantially less virulent, may come to dominate, with the long term effect that the pandemic recedes into the realm of troublesome but not particularly lethal or economically devastating illnesses such as colds and (mostly) flu. Sure, flu kills a lot of people every year, but we've adapted to thinking of that as background, for better or worse. If COVID were to evolve into a state where nearly everyone got it one or more times in their life but only one in 100,000 died from it, again, for better or worse, we would just live with that and get on with other concerns. 

Omicron news

Way too soon for conclusions, but reports are there are early signs Omicron might even cause milder illness than Delta or the original Wuhan virus. It is possible, perhaps not likely, but possible, that this is actually a step towards the end of the pandemic.... what probably happened with the Russian Flu coronavirus in the late 19th century was that it mutated. Not into a less transmissible form, but into a cold virus, from a lethal respiratory pandemic agent. Omicron is probably not that, but it's possible. Someday they may refer to "the various coronaviruses that cause the common cold, including the mutated form of COVID-19."

Fascinating video on the evolution of the Eukarya / Nick Lane (Univ. College, London)

If you have even a little interest in evolutionary biology, I highly recommend this video. I'm reading his 2015 book, The Vital Question. 

https://youtu.be/gLcWfecmZhE?list=TLPQMDQxMjIwMjEI7hslYNgkgQ

Holy crap

Let me just say this real simple-like. As a nation, we barely squeaked by the last election with our republic intact despite a truly decisive popular-vote victory nationally in the presidency, House and Senate. And the insurrectionist forces that seek to undermine our constitutional democracy have not let up. We now have well organized institutionalized pro-insurrectionist media propaganda 24-7, states which have so gerrymandered the House seats that a right wing victory is highly likely in 2022, a Senate which is so distorted from any kind of democratic norm structurally that it's likely 30-35% of the voters will take a majority of the Senate, either next year or in '24. And the Senate cannot function without a supermajority anyway thanks to probably the worst institutional structural distortion among any major counties' elected legislatures. States controlled by the insurrectionist faction and right wing judges have ensured that massive and effective voter suppression will occur, and that laws making it extremely difficult for Democratic voters to vote are enacted and kept in force. Meanwhile, the Democratic party seems unable to organize any effective counter to these developments, and the mainstream press, so obsessed with fictitious "balance," focuses almost entirely on negative stories that make the right wing insurrectionists seem normal and the only political party that is seeking to maintain the republic seem weak and ineffective. 

Face it folks, at least since 1860, there has never been a greater threat to our republic, either internal or external, and we are failing to rise to the challenge. 

Omicron blues

No cause for panic, but we have to look at facts. And the facts about the Omicron variant aren't pretty so far. The worst part is that for the cost of a half dozen fighter jets we, just us Americans, could probably have vaccinated enough people by now in the global south to have prevented this mutation set from emerging at all. 

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1466480113487392769 

https://twitter.com/TWenseleers/status/1466501989500653568

https://www.ft.com/content/df3738ab-ea2b-438c-96ed-aa7eb75451a2

Increased levels of Vitamin D important to help prevent acute respiratory distress and other problems?

I am not competent or knowledgeable enough to evaluate this, but by reputation and approach, this British doctor seems credible. Something to think about and possibly act on, on the theory that it isn't likely to be harmful and might be quite salutary. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5g9AVqRsjo

Happy Thanksgiving

Despite all the difficulties we've all experienced to one degree or another over the last couple of years, I want to take just a moment to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and hope that a spirit of gratitude can find its way into every heart. 

Cheers,

Sorry to have to say, it but the conclusions of this Swedish based group seem...

pretty damn obvious to me. It may be a worldwide trend, but its manifestation in the US is the most deeply disturbing long term political development in my lifetime. At least so it seems to me. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/22/united-states-backsliding-democracies-list-first-time/ 

"Illiberal Democracy" is like saying "Love is Hate".... read HRC today

Farflung correspondents, 

Those of you who read an occasional missive from me will know that I am a big fan of historian Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American substack. But this one is a particularly important piece of writing which I commend to you, in lieu of my blathering on about this or that. 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-21-2021 

Economy and Build Back Better

I am a regular reader of historian Heather Cox Richardson's substack "Letters from an American." Yesterday's has some very interesting observations about the economy and the Build Back Better CBO score, etc.  From watching and reading the standard media outlets you would think our overall situation is much worse than Richardson's analysis suggests. 

«

 A report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on Thursday showed that the United States is the only G7 country to surpass its pre-pandemic economic growth. That growth has been so strong it has buoyed other countries.

Meanwhile, the administration's work with ports and supply chains to handle the increase in demand for goods appears to be having an effect. Imports through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are up 16% from 2018, and in the first two weeks of November, those two ports cleared about a third of the containers sitting on their docks.

Then the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score for the Democrats' $1.85 trillion Build Back Better Act. The CBO is a nonpartisan agency within the legislative branch that provides budget and economic information to Congress. The CBO's estimate of the costs of the Build Back Better Act will affect who will vote for it.

The CBO's projection was good news for the Democrats; it was in line with what the Democrats had said the bill would cost. The CBO estimates that the bill will increase the deficit by $367 billion over ten years. But the CBO also estimates that the government will raise about $207 billion over those same ten years by enforcing tax rules on those currently cheating on them. These numbers were good in themselves—in comparison, the CBO said the 2017 Republican tax cuts would cost $1.4 trillion over ten years—but they might get even better. Many economists, including Larry Summers, who has been critical of the Biden administration, think that the CBO estimates badly underplay the benefits of the bill.

The CBO score also predicted that the savings from prescription drug reforms in the bill would come in $50 billion higher than the House had predicted.

As soon as the score was released, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote on the bill tonight, suggesting that she had the votes to pass the bill.

And then something interesting happened. Kevin McCarthy took to the House floor to slow down the passage of the Build Back Better Act, throwing the vote into the middle of the night. The minority leader put on a Trump-esque show of non-sequiturs, previewing the kind of speech he would make to rally Republicans behind him if the Republicans retake the House in 2022. The speech was angry, full of shouting, and made for right-wing media: it was full of all the buzz-words that play there. McCarthy spoke for more than three hours—as I write this, he is still speaking.

But the blows he was trying to deliver didn't land. The Democrats made fun of him, catcalled, and eventually just walked out, while the Republicans lined up behind McCarthy looked increasingly bored, checked their phones, and appeared to doze off. When Axios reporter Andrew Solender asked a Republican aide for some analysis of the speech, the aide answered: "I'm watching the Great British Baking Show."

As he spoke, Pelosi's office fact-checked him, noting that while he is attacking the elements of the bill, saying no one wants them, the opposite is true. According to CBS News, Pelosi's staff wrote, "88 percent of Americans support Build Back Better's measures to cut prescription drug prices," "73 percent of Americans support Build Back Better's funding for paid family leave," and "67 percent of Americans support Build Back Better's funding for universal pre-K." In addition, according to Navigator Research, "84 percent of Americans support Build Back Better's provisions to lower health insurance premiums," and "72 percent of Americans support Build Back Better's creation of clean energy jobs to combat climate change.

»

Inflation is being greatly exaggerated in its import

I make no pretense of being an economist, but it seems really obvious to me regarding the current roughly 6% rate of inflation:

1. It is skewed. Meat, some imported goods, autos (including used autos) and several other sectors are at a high rate, but most services are little affected.
   
2. It's primarily driven by shifts in the economy related to COVID which have spiked demand. Thus it is not actually a sign of weakness in the economy, and will likely work itself out in a year or two, with some things that are driven by global trade slowdowns also caused by high demand taking longer to work out.
   
3. Unemployment is virtually nonexistent, which means wages are rising, too, making inflation much less of a worry. Inflation actually indicates that demand is high, people have money, and the economy has foundational strength. Very unlike the recession that followed the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009.
   

In my opinion, the continuing political crisis caused by massive disinformation and one party doing literally everything it can to terminate the small-r republican principles that are supposed to underly our system of government (i.e., majoritarian representation, as opposed to oligarchy), is far more of a concern than the economy right now. Democrats need to get a whole lot better at conveying the message that they're the ones who stand for stability, fairness, and the kind of balanced government support that we used to have in this country from roughly 1932-1980, while the Republicans stand for corporatist and super-rich power over representative government that takes the views of the majority into account. In comparison, the relatively minor economic disruption caused by the pandemic pales.

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Big Auto splits on Climate Change

Here you go. Ford, GM, Hyundai/Kia, Volvo and Mercedes (and Tesla, obviously) have all signed on to the goal of all zero emissions vehicles by 2040. But Toyota, which was recently shown to have participated in widespread climate disinformation in consort with Big Oil.... and Volkswagen, which famously faked emissions results for its highly polluting diesel cars in the US a few years ago, along with Nissan/Renault, have not. For me, it's an imperative. I will be BOYCOTTING the products of Volkswagen, Nissan/Renault and Toyota until they change their tune. 

The article doesn't mention Honda, but Honda was a pioneer in hybrid vehicles. It has been somewhat slow to produce all electric cars. My guess is that Honda will end up on the right side of this issue, given their history. And hopefully, soon, they all will, because it will become clear to them that there simply is no other path forward. 

Link

Ellen Genevieve Wilson Studhalter, born November 11, 2021

My mother, Ellen Genevieve Wilson Studhalter, was born in Illinois one hundred years ago today. I've now lived more than half my life since she died from lung cancer at 61 in January 1983. You never forget your parents... I think no day has gone by when I haven't thought of her. But I have never been able to picture her as a 100 year old lady. I suppose she would have wanted it that way. 

Some comments on my disability of possible interest

I have a disability. (Well, several, perhaps, if you include the sorts of mental and emotional dysfunctions that many people are moderately impaired by; this is a physical disability, and not age-related). Fortunately, it's not extreme nor has it prevented me from living a rewarding and fulfilling life nor caused me to have to make or seek out major accommodations to deal with it. But it does cause me some trouble, and, as it is sometimes a little subtle, it gets mistaken for grumpiness, anti-social attitude, etc., which I more or less just embrace and let people think that of me.

I am deaf in one ear. Have been since a very serious case of mumps at age 4. Left me with complete nerve deafness on the left. Fortunately, my right ear hearing was unaffected and at 68 remains pretty good. I am an amateur pianist and baroque chamber musician, and music is my No. 1 passion among the arts and pastimes. I actually thought for a brief moment early in my adult life I could even make it a profession, but I realized quickly I have nowhere near the talent or physical capacity for that. So it's been a hobby, listening, and, as life progressed, more and more, playing. So my disability has been a real handicap. But that's not where it really affects me a lot. I cope with hearing music two-dimensionally. If you have "normal" hearing you can't really appreciate this: I cannot easily tell where sound is coming from, and it's quite difficult for me to pick out the different layers of sound in a musical texture or auditory environment. A bird call across the valley? To me, I can tell that it is distant. If I move my head I can tell, to within about 90°, what direction it's coming from. But I can't "place it" in space the way people with normal hearing can. When people talk about "stereo" sound or how great a stereo sound system is, I can hear the fidelity, but not the "stereo." I understand intellectually what it means, but I can't hear it. Everything is "mono." I can identify a clarinet solo in an orchestral texture by its timbre, its dynamic, its tone color, its harmonic function, etc., but not, or not easily, by its spatial relationship to other sounds. This is a definite lack, but one I've learned to compensate for to some degree.

About five years ago, after mulling it over for several years, I had a BAHA (bone-anchored hearing assistance) abutment implanted in my skull, and got a BAHA device to use with it. This picks up sound on the deaf side, and transmits it through the bones of the skull, where I can hear it, at about 50% content (not the same as volume, which is adjustable but not without side-effects), in my "good" ear. This does work, and some people love it. Mine sits in a drawer and the abutment is just a hook to catch my hairbrush once in a while. I may eventually even have it removed, since it makes MRIs of the head impossible. Why? Because it doesn't do what I thought it would, and the only real reason I wanted it. In ambient noise situations, like a room full of people talking, or, especially, a room where people are eating, listening to music, and talking (i.e., a restaurant, or, the worst, a bar or nightclub), it does nothing for me. I still can't hear anything of what people are saying to me, unless I look right at them and listen to them with my good ear. And if the music is loud, I have to literally draw in close, face my ear towards them, and pay close attention. When in these situations, especially the loud music situation, I strain to hear what people are saying (I hear the music fine), but I just can't. After a while it becomes exhausting, and I give up. And sit there. I become the deaf old man. I try to guess or infer from the 40% or so of the words I can make out what they are saying, but it's tiring. Others want to stay for the full 2½ hour set, but I'm ready to go after an hour. I actually become quite physically uncomfortable in such settings. So, mostly, I just don't go. Hence the curmudgeon, grump, anti-social impression.

Actually, I do go. Sometimes. Just to be sociable; so as not to deprive friends and my husband of something he loves to do… sometimes it's easier to just go and put up with it. I do enjoy the music enough so that overall I'm often (admittedly, not always), glad I went.

Do I feel sorry for myself? No, not really. As disabilities go, this one is minor, and I'm lucky not to have other physical or health conditions that are much worse. I'm only writing this to make people aware. Other people are not always grumpy or moody or just difficult. Sometimes it's because they can't hear and it makes them uncomfortable. Hearing difficulty is much more common than a lot of people, especially younger adults, realize or take into account. Something to be aware of. 

Afghanistan in a nutshell

The essential reality of what's happening in Afghanistan is being lost on a lot of people. The Taliban, after being assured by Mike Pompeo... under Trump's administration... that the US would be withdrawing completely, secured negotiated surrender from essentially all military forces in Afghanistan and waited for the US to actually leave. All the supposed efforts to train and finance Afghan government troops... some 300,000, came to nothing, and the actual Afghan people have done virtually nothing to prevent the takeover of their country by the Taliban. So, tragic and terrible it may be, but this is their country, their choice not to fight a civil war, and nothing the US should be involved in for any longer than is necessary to remove our presence and any associated personnel to whom we owe protection (a tricky issue). This should have been done 12 years ago. No, actually, probably should have been done in January 2002, after the failure at Tora Bora.

Afghanistan

Farflung correspondents, 

Although it can hardly be clearer that this juncture in history is an unmitigated tragedy for Afghanistan, and there is much to criticize in the way the pullout was allowed to transpire, in the end, I believe, there was no choice but to bring the 20 year conflict involving the US to an end and pull out. This kind of conflict has no real possibility of "victory." The irreducible truth is that there is substantial support in the country for the Islamist forces of the Taliban, and, again, in the end, who governs Afghanistan simply is not up to us. 

 

I believe that although the way this has gone will not inure to the benefit of Biden and Democrats in the short run, in the longer term, by which I suspect we mean months not years, most Americans will have all but forgotten Afghanistan. We are ready to turn the page and no longer be involved in an unwinnable conflict on a permanent basis. The citizens of a country, however problematic its cultural traditions and rulers, are responsible for their own governance. We cannot and should not expect to use military force to maintain a regime we consider more favorable to our geopolitical interests or concepts of how societies should be governed. Unless we were to choose the path of literal empire, and take control of every place in the world whose government we don't like (clearly not an option anyway), we just have to live with the multipolar world where not everyone is our friend. 

Delta Variant, Masks, Vaccines, Mutation ... a virologist speaks

Farflung correspondents,

This episode of Dr. Abdul Al-Sayed's pandemic podcast America Dissected, featuring a conversation with noted virologist Angie Rasmussen, contains the best explanation I've heard of the Delta variant, reasons to go back to mask wearing, the efficacy of the vaccines and why they remain absolutely crucial, and why a completely vaccine resistant strain emerging is actually unlikely. Even if you never listen to podcasts, please make an exception for this one.

https://crooked.com/podcast/delta-delta-delta-with-dr-angie-rasmussen/

Musing on infinity

I remember as a quite young kid, maybe 12, thinking along the lines of "if the universe is really infinite, then that means there are an infinite number of me out there, doing exactly the same thing I'm doing, on a world exactly like Earth, and on an infinite number of them I'm thinking this right now, but just as many I'm not, and things turn out different." To me, even then, the logic of this was inescapable. In infinity everything that's possible actually happens. I remember trying to justify this thinking to a couple of friends, but they didn't see it.

Later I came to (mis)understand from reading about the Big Bang that the universe likely was not infinite, just very large, so this kind of thinking, with all the weirdness it entails, probably meant nothing, and that's been my tacit or explicit working worldview thereafter until some really novel ideas emerged in recent years. All of this was before Alan Guth proposed inflation, and others following on him realized that inflation actually can result in a universe composed of infinite space, and infinite mass and energy, referred to as "Eternal Inflation."

Now I read in Max Tegmark's remarkable book, "Our Mathematical Universe," that the best match to observation is this "Eternal Inflation," and that, indeed, in all likelihood, the universe causally connected to the so-called Big Bang (in other words excluding the higher levels of Multiverse, but including all the stars and galaxies even beyond the horizon where we can ever see (the so-called "observable universe" horizon), probably IS infinite, after all, and, well, my musings from more than 50 years ago were spot on. A fairly lengthy quote from the aforementioned book (paraphrased a bit because he uses the phraseology "Level I Parallel Universe" to refer to regions of the Big Bang Universe where detailed patterns are repeated by pure chance, inevitable in the case of infinity; I prefer to call them "regions" of our universe):
 

"…the quantum induced differences between [different regions of the universe] get amplified over time into very different histories. Students [in different regions] would learn the same thing in physics class but different things in history class.

"But would those students exist in the first place? It seems extremely unlikely that your life turned out exactly as it did, since it required so many things to happen: Earth had to form, life had to evolve, the dinosaurs had to go extinct, your parents had to meet, you had to get the idea to read this book, etc. But the probability of all these outcomes happening clearly isn't zero, since it in fact happened right here in [our part of the] Universe. And if you roll the dice enough times, even the most unlikely things are guaranteed to happen. With infinitely many … parallel (regions of the universe] created by inflation, quantum fluctuations effectively rolled the dice infinitely many times, guaranteeing with 100% certainty your life would occur in one of them. Indeed, in infinitely many of them, since even a tiny fraction of an infinite number is still an infinite number.

"And an infinite space doesn't ONLY contain exact copies of you. It contains many more people who are almost like you, yet slightly different. So if you were to go out and meet the closest person out there in space who looked like your spitting image, this person would probably speak an alien language you couldn't understand and would have experienced a life quite different from yours. But of all your infinitely many look-alikes out there on other planets there are also [an infinite number] who speak English, live on a planet identical to Earth, and have experienced a life completely indistinguishable from yours in all ways. This person subjectively feels exactly like [how] you feel. Yet there may be some very minor difference in how the particles move in your alter ego's brain that's too subtle to make a perceptible difference for now, but which in a few seconds will make your alter ego put this book aside while you read on, causing your two lives to start diverging."

Where we are in space

Here's something you don't see all the time that gives a little perspective of "where we are".  The photo is a spiral galaxy more or less similar to the Milky Way seen almost exactly edge on. Think of it as a stand-in for our Galaxy. Then the diagram, obviously not at all to scale, depicts the angle of the plane of the solar system, about 66° to the plane of the Galaxy. (In reality, the Solar System would be invisibly small at this scale, as the Sun is but one of nearly 300 billion stars in the Galaxy.

  We are about 27,000 light years from the center, and the disk as seen in this image would be about 85,000 light years in diameter in the Milky Way. The Sun is located in a spur of one of the spiral arm, and its orbit and position with respect to the central "bar" (the MW is a "barred spiral" type galaxy) is shown in the image below.