Media Chases The Next Shiny Object To Get Trump Or Something

Man-Made Blood Cells With A Pocket For A Payload

This is pretty exciting.  Better-than-life red-blood cell imitations can be made in the lab.  They are hollow on the inside (that's the pocket) using some actual red blood cell (RBC) inputs for a scaffold and then later to complete the outer membrane.  The pocket can be loaded with medicines or even guide-able magnetic particles.  This isn't cheaper than blood transfusions but it creates a safe way to introduce useful RBC mimics into our bloodstream and give them specialized extra tasks.

The sequence:
Generic RBC are coated with silica for a base layer.
Polymers of different charges are painted onto this base layer.
The RBC scaffold and the silica layer are then scraped away leaving a flexible polymer layer with the exact dimpled shape of a red blood cell.

Picture sequence from Science Alert article

Then a membrane of RBC slurry is painted on top so the package will be labelled as friendly in the blood stream.  Having a real RBC coat, it can deliver oxygen to cells. Being hollow, it can be loaded with medicine and steered.  Being flexible, it can work its way through the same crannies a regular RBC faces, make the round trip to the heart and stay in the stream for weeks.

( I couldn't tell if the antigen surface of the RBC coat was specific for each blood type.  The research language uses the term "erythrocyte ghosts". A better informed reader can leave a note.)

Space News June 2020

SpaceX docks at ISS May 31st:  Private initiatives have got their nose out under the tent flap and see stars beckoning. Well, metal asteroids anyway. Capitalism with government subsidies got its first crack at going into outer space on May 30.  The SpaceX module delivered astronauts to the aging space lab from a U.S. base, instead of at $86 million per chair per launch being paid to Russia as per the last nine years.  The space story here is that at least one government, the American one, has got a little out of the way and  there will be good consequences.
       You can watch the launch here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyq_piGHKuY
And watch the link with the space station here:

Earth's magnetic field continues actively re-shaping.  The north pole moves dozens of kilometers in one year lately, requiring navigation updates all the time. It's actually close to the "real" north pole for the first time in my life   The new story is that an area of low magnetic flux in the South Atlantic is weakening and developing twin cores.  The South Atlantic Anomaly changes have been detected by a cluster of  Swarm satellites.
The Anomaly has been moving westwards about 19 kmph recently.  That's not "per year" but "per hour".The top speculation is that we are approaching one of earth's periodic reversals of magnetic poles.  The Daily Mail was all over this one for graphics.  There's a movie of the changing field at the link.   (The last polar flip was 780,000 years ago.





Every few weeks a meteorite from outside the solar system burns up in our atmosphere.  Here's a recent fireball track from May 19th.  Spaceweather.com posts a daily report from the NASA all-sky-cameras.  The straight blue line is the culprit, projecting where it would have gone if we hadn't been in the way.







Like a bump on a log in a hole in the bottom of the sea,  a speck of dust smaller than a mustard seed on a moon pebble has been analysed and The Creation of the Moon is being revealed in that speck.  A cubic zirconia crystal was found and measured.  It' formed about 4.3 billion years ago and this could only have happened in temperatures above 2300 C.  Those amazing temperatures would only have happened if that region of the moon's surface had turned molten.  The conclusion is that an immense and specific moon-rocking collision happened as part of the moon's story. The speculation is old but having a measurement is new. Today the moon is sedate with one side turned towards us, slowing its orbit by 1.5 milliseconds per century.



Near earth orbit is filling up with junk. The current cost of satellite junk cleanup is about the same as the cost of launching a new satellite.  This is an opportunity for a bureaucracy to tax new launches  (like a pop bottle deposit but a million times pricier)  and it's an opportunity for an entrepreneur to get filthy rich developing a cheaper clean-up business.


Four separate millisecond massive bursts of energy  (FRB = Fast Radio Burst) have been pin-pointed to the periphery of the galaxies they came from, eliminating a central black hole as the source.  From the Astrophysical Journal Letters, "Appears to rule out FRB progenitor models that invoke active galactic nuclei or free-floating cosmic strings."

Third Party Not Needed, Just Competition for the Uniparty.

From Sundance:

"Many people call for a third party in politics without realizing President Trump represents the first second party DC has seen in decades. That’s why he is opposed by both wings of the same legislative bird.   Both parties are deep in the pockets of Wall St multinationals."

Ocean Larvaceans as complex and airy as a thought: Particle flow filmed.

Stunning up-close underwater imagery of a life form new to me. (Ignore the sound track).
From Wikipedia:

Larvaceans (Class Appendicularia) are solitary, free-swimming tunicates found throughout the world's oceans. Like most tunicates, appendicularians are filter feeders. Unlike most other tunicates, they live in the pelagic zone, specifically in the upper sunlit portion of the ocean, or sometimes deeper. They are transparent planktonic animals, generally less than 1 cm (0.39 in) in body length,

Why I love Donald Trump

"Get any candidate ready, good or bad, I don't care, I'm endorsing. If you have a pulse, I"m with you!"

This riposte after Senator Murkowski said she may not support the reelection of President Donald Trump.

"You're stuck between lawless mobs and egomaniac government tyrants"

So, systemic racism is bad in cities that Democrat mayors have run for the last half century? They're the problem, not the solution.

"Law-abiding citizens have been sandwiched between egomaniac government tyrants and lawless mobs. Lawless mobs that are being cheered on by the aforementioned government tyrants."   (Add to that credentialed elites and actors).

The hyprocrisy is total and will kill people: From tweets betwen Olivia Gatwood and James Beatty: "Burn it down, fuck property, fuck cops".



Above excerpts from Instapundit's June 4th morning posts.

Shocking: Care Homes and New York City account for almost 70% of All Covid-10 Deaths. Targeting Here Would Mean National Lockdowns Unneeded.

71% of all Covid-19 deaths were either in long term care facilities or in New York City. The Pandemic Plans attacked every American instead of just the people in the critical core.

The numbers are changing rapidly but here goes:
A recent national death tally attributed to Covid-19          94,000  (or 100,000)
Recent deaths attributed to Long Term Care Facilities    43%  of 94,000 or roughly 40,000  (see chart)
Recent death tally in New York City area     29,650    (or maybe about 35,000)
Recent death tally from Care Facilities NY State   5800.
  Some portion of those deaths are NYC and downstate, say 1/2.
Net NYC deaths outside Care Facilities              26,750.
     Expressed as a percentage of the national tally =   28%
So, rough and ready, 28% plus 43% of 94,000 deaths are in Long Term Care Facilities across America and New York City.

Chart from the first link

If some of the hundreds of billions of dollars had been targeted on Long Term Care Facilities and the leadership of New York City, the rest of the country could reasonably have been spared the loss of millions of jobs and trillions of dollars.

Hindsight is 20-20.  This wasn't known initially.  That's no excuse for there being no logical progression to better targeted responses.  Besides getting some herd immunity to Covid-19, we've also acquired some herd immunity against the next time over-the-top tyrants want to abrogate the constitution.

Add the 2 lines together.

China Makes Moves Pointing To War But Why ?

This is becoming critical knowledge to acquire.  Why is China now making additional warlike moves towards India, towards Hong Kong, towards Taiwan and continuing to steal prominence in the South China Sea?   There is threat towards the United States too, not the least of which is blaming the US for Covid-19's creation.

Instead of an answer, I am linking to a short Instapundit note May 28th and the many voices speculating in the comment section.  There is a disturbance in the force.

New England Journal of Medicine May 2020: Mask Offers Little, If Any, Protection From Infection

"We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection."   

That's the opener in this weeks NEJM article.  This has always been true. (Listen to Laurie Garrett  back in February who has been in dozens of disease zones).  

What exposure does it take to get sick?

"Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic."

Note the word "anxiety".  Masks play a useful symbolic role:

It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals. Although such reactions may not be strictly logical, we are all subject to fear and anxiety, especially during times of crisis.

Some people hate and hassle you if you won't wear a mask in even the safest settings.  "Because Science".   Saying "science" doesn't repair delusion.

Pretty funny exposition of Mask vs No-Mask right here.  "I didn't know sheep could speak English"  "I'm not going to wear a face diaper"  and so on.

Roughneck Team Make Drilling Rig Pipe Connection: Unforgettable 4 Minutes of Hard Dangerous Work.

Magnificent Roman Floor Tiles Uncovered

At a dig near Verona, a like-new mosaic floor has been uncovered a couple feet down. Parts are perfect and I want to take off my shoes and walk on those bright ancient colours.

Squirrel Thieves Challenge Course

A wonderful entertainment on a nearly squirrel-proof challenge course to a bird feeder, brought to you by the guy who invented glitter spray bombs for Amazon parcels that were being stolen from front door steps.  Wow.

Update:  Maybe there really is a squirrel proof bird feeder.  Glossy surface, 4.5 inches in diameter so the squirrels can't shinny down the tube, 21" long tube so they can't stretch from top to bottom of the tube and a battery powered widget at the bottom that tosses off the squirrel but supports up to four birds.

Kayleigh McEnany - A Perfect Description

"A no-nonsense camp counselor in charge of the problem kids".

Poisonous Spin in the Media Every Day. Today Pew Twists Covid-19 Chart.

The chart shouts out that Republican districts have been by far the safest to ride out Covid-19.  The spin says there has been almost no improvement in Republican districts while Democrat districts have been drops in death.  How awful and how typical.  Every day, this is the diet on offer.  Being a consumer is a dangerous occupation.  To get good information, you must be a hunter gatherer who gets out there and finds their own food.

Hong Kong About To Lose Special Status: Once in a Generation Moment

Pompeo announced that Hong Kong can no longer be considered sufficiently autonomous to have special status different from the rest of China.  This is part of his mandatory report to Congress for May 25th of this year. Next move is with congress.

“This decision gives me no pleasure. But sound policy-making requires a recognition of reality,” Mr. Pompeo said in the statement. “It is now clear that China is modeling Hong Kong after itself.”

Tariff exemptions and travel freedoms may shortly be stopped.  China's financial sector has grown immensely so that the calculus of swallowing up Hong Kong but losing special market access may now look okay to the CCP.

This is a generational change, large elements of world politics and commerce are going to re-align but go better or worse is unknown.

Elvis Worked Hard For Those Hits

I remember Elvis for dozens of hit songs. 

What I didn't realize is that he recorded over 700 songs 

to get those couple dozen.  

Top guys get lucky by working hard.

V Shaped Recovery Coming. BC Parks Re-started On-Line Camping Reservations Monday And Promptly Crashed

Unprecedented demand for BC campsite reservations exploded Monday morning as bookings were re-opened.   The government site opened at 7 a.m. and crashed immediately, yet by noon over 35,000 had gotten through, despite redials, shaky site graphics and a ban on out-of-province tourists.

From the Vancouver Sun story

This looks like a V-shaped economic recover, against all the odds.  It matches Kudlow's hopeful prediction of a Great American Comeback in the States  and a top Obama economist's fearful prediction that the United States will see the "best economic data" in its history.

A Sad Day: Twitter Branch Of The Democrat Party Owns Your Vote

Twitter started censoring the President's tweets.  If you don't like mail-in ballots, you won't be allowed to say so.  Democrat Party 1  Democracy 0.
h/t  theconservativetreehouse.com

Twitter along with Google, Facebook and even Wikipedia exercise government power through narrative control.

Apple Charts How We move: Bus is flat, foot and car is back to normal.

This is the chart behind the stories of Americans on the move again.  Cell phone tracking by Apple shows day and night pulses and dramatic changes that outstrip the partial lifting of lockdowns.  But only in private travel.  Public transit is dead and flat.  Governors holding the OFF button down are fighting a losing battle.

A fun read from Katie Hopkins (and acerbic): What I learned from Coronavirus

Before you read the rest for your entertainment, here are highlights:
1.   People overreact.  It's comforting to know that the most fearful in our society will never need to buy toilet paper again.
2.   The massive overreaction has been horrible to watch.  It's disturbing to learn people you thought you could trust are as mad as the rest of the herd.
3.   Too many people enjoy imposing rules on others.  They enjoy telling you how to ride your bike, how far away you have to stand for their safety and how many times you can walk your dog.
4.    No cost is too much to cover a politician's backside.  Think of those zombie hospitals never used.
5.    Spending more time around family is pleasant.

Erasable History: The Wayback Machine is becoming vulnerable to censorship.

The Wayback Machine is the near ultimate digital record of our past.  A new feature allows judgements to be attached to records, labelled "potential disinformation"..   This distortion is where the camel gets its nose under the tent to disrupt a faithful record.   As Faulkner wrote, "The Past isn't dead.  It isn't even past".

"More and more of humanity’s knowledge is accumulated in massive digital repositories. The danger is not only in the outright loss of stored data as a result of technical malfunctions but also in the greater ability to execute historical revisionism and misrepresenting facts to future generations. Wikipedia – a widely consulted online encyclopedia – is already guilty of this. But, now the Wayback Internet archive is trending down this slippery slope with its recently implemented labeling of snapshot results as potential disinformation."

"Elliot Leavy, warns in an article addressing the changes at the Wayback Machine site, “if we continue to censor the past, attaching intent to some but not to others, we will be unable to evaluate anything at all.”

Covid19: People who are in a state of anxiety are blind

From the former Israeli Health Minister:

“This is nothing more than a flu epidemic if you care to look at the numbers & data, but people who are in a state of anxiety are blind.”
”Mortality due to coronavirus is a fake number. Most people are not dying from coronavirus…The number of infected people is fake, because it depends on the number of tests.. The only real number is the total # of deaths – all causes of death, not just coronavirus.”
“Every winter we get what is called an excess death rate… Coronvavirus comes very fast, but it also goes away very fast. The flu wave is shallow as it takes 3 months to pass.. CV season, we have had an excess mortality which is about 15% larger than the epidemic of regular flu in 2017”
“Compared to that (15%) rise, the draconian measures are of biblical proportions. Hundreds of millions of people are suffering.. More people will die from the measures than from the virus. And the people who die from the measures are the breadwinners.”

Expanded information is posted at thegatewaypundit and is taken from Dr. Andrew Bostom's retweet of Yoram Lass's interview.

Tour Ancient Rome, Almost Alive.

The four minute animated clip of the heart of ancient Rome is stunning.   The wealth and colour and craft on display I think were real.  The video has people riding and walking about but the throngs are missing and clearly some parts of the city were crowded and stinky.  But the showpiece areas were the wonder of the world and would be so today.   Created by New Historia. 

Why are flowers pretty? They ride first class with us and push our buttons.

Playing twenty questions as kids, we were allowed "animal, vegetable or mineral?"   I was superior to humble plants.  They however are more like us than you may think and represent the most recent and innovative development of a billion years evolution.  They are so advanced in fact that they recruit almost every creature in the animal kingdom to help reproduce.  They craft their lures to attract the hairy bee legs that collect pollen, they add hooks to piggy back on mammalian fur,  tobacco and poppies concoct addictive drugs for homo sapiens, sugars and bright colours capture the attention not just of humming birds but of the crown of creation, our very own humble selves.   All that without wings or legs or a cerebrum.

They immodestly decorate their genitals to be sure that highly-evolved brainy creatures stop by to investigate and help make plant sex successful by transporting DNA.  Perfume, nectar and eye-catching colour are popular  lures.  They are attractive because trial and error has found the buttons that move us. An ivory tower philosopher may wonder if beauty is universal.
The garden variety thinker sees that whatever gives an organism a future (life and progeny) is hardwired to create a pleasurable motivating sensation to seek it out.   The flowering plants skillfully take advantage of this, because they are riding in the same first class coach as us, they know us, and are the product of a school of hard knocks in which they learned a thing or two.
The principle is delegate to others what you don't need to do yourself.

Masks Now Have Politics

From Powerline's Hinderaker:

"Increasingly, wearing and not wearing face masks has become a cultural divide. Those who fear COVID-19, or who want to make the point that the virus is the great issue of our lifetimes, or who want to show support for high-handed politicians who have issued shutdown orders that may or may not be legal, wear masks. Those who are skeptical of any of the above propositions, or doubt whether masks do any good, or simply aren’t very afraid of the virus, generally don’t, unless they have to."

I'm with group two, The Deplorables.

Good Home-Cooked Meals Can Wreck Family Life

How can that be?  A good diet helps people grow taller and mature sexually earlier too.  In past centuries raging hormones didn't get an upper hand until a youngster was well into their teens and had been working as an adult, often for their parents.  It was easier for parents to have control.  Youngsters who engage in sex while going to high school will not be ruled readily.  Centrifugal forces that tend to break up the family or at the very least make it hard to govern, will prevail.

The Chess Game, Anguissola 1555
He painted his sisters. The charming
young adult on the left is flat chested.

Over the past century the age at menarche [first menstruation] has fallen in industrialized countries, but that trend has stopped and may even be reversing. The average age at menarche in 1840 was 16.5 years, now it is 13.

In seventeenth century Austria, the well-fed upper classes had children well ahead of the country folk.

According to Shorter's research, by the 17th century — the end of the Renaissance era — the average age of first period had risen to 16. Shorter attributes this to widespread malnutrition in the era; Renaissance girls who were underfed typically went into a state of delayed puberty. He also notes a class divide among the age of first period, quoting an anonymous Austrian author in 1610 who claimed that, "The peasant girls of this Country in general menstruate much later than the daughters of the townsfolk or the aristocracy...The townsfolk have usually born several children before the peasant girls have yet menstruated."

Menarche trending in Norway

It's complicated, however.  There's evidence that before the crowded city times of the industrial revolution, menarche was at an earlier age.  Also, puberty is a larger event over quite a few years and the one can be early while the other may take years to complete.  Lastly, menarche is easier to report about because young men producing viable sperm don't have an easy to detect event.

Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken.

Good advice!  It was hard to apply before my hair turned grey, before raising a family and the shocks of running a small business.   "Everyone else is already taken" is inescapably obvious and true.

"When you're young, you think everyone is thinking about you"
"As you get older, you don't care what they think."
"Older still, you realize they weren't thinking about you in the first place".

Government bills stuffed with freeloaders

Nurture your nature

Same genetics, different nurture.
Well-tended petunias don't sprout wings or add cerebellum but their nature responds to their nurture.

Texas (R) & Florida (R) versus California (D) and New York (D):

This chart makes it clear I want to live in Texas or Florida in Wuhan flu times.  I'm safer from the flu, able to dine out, get a haircut, and financially sound to boot.  The Texas governor retweeted the numbers:

President just made a joke about journalists. Queue outrage.

President Trump just finished a White House lawn presser and made a joke.
Asked if he'd attend the SpaceX launch of astronauts next week he said:

I'm thinking of going to the rocket launch next week.
I hope you're all going to join me.
I'd like to put you in the rocket and get rid of you for a while.

And with that and a grin, he ended the media scrum.
Expect headlines that Trump wants to end the free press, that Trump is an tyrannic authoritarian. Don't expect observations about crowding him and rephrasing gotcha questions in hope of hurting his re-election chances.

It must be tough to be Press Corps Karens who can't call the manager to complain.  They are already talking to the manager.

Behind Obama's Puzzling Warning About Flynn

Why did outgoing President Trump make it a priority to warn incoming President Trump against hiring General Flynn to be National Security Advisor?     

Trump told aide Hope Hicks that he was bewildered by the president’s warning. Of all the important things Obama could have discussed with him, the outgoing commander in chief wanted to talk about Michael Flynn.    Obviously, Barack Obama revealed his great hatred for General Flynn to President Trump during their first private meeting.    (snip)
Flynn not only made it clear that he wanted to undo the Iran Deal, he also broadcast his determination to find the documents detailing the secret deals between Obama and Iran, and to publicize them.

Flynn would undo Obama's legacy move and publicize secret deals with Iran.  How cynical is that?

Ratcliffe Nomination Now Rushed. How Cynical Is That?

Ratcliffe, who couldn't get support from the Senate Intelligence Committee a few months ago is not only up for the Senate confirmation vote but the vote date has been brought forward.  The Washington Examiner suggests that power brokers want Richard Grenell gone from Acting Director of National Intelligence before he declassifies any more embarrassments.  How cynical is that?

Ketchup or Gourmet Sauce?

My breakfast sausage had something a little extra this morning:  Indonesian Ketjap sauce, re-imagined with pomodoro (love apples) and a cloves highlight.

Popular can include taste excellence
Salt and oxygen are popular too.

White House New China Policy Released: "No More Mister Nice Guy"

Key points are "tolerance of greater bilateral friction" and "principled realism" . This 16 page policy statement dated May 20 is a good read, a how-to primer and not wonk babble.  The full statement from the White House is here.

To respond to Beijing’s challenge, the Administration has adopted a competitive approach to the PRC, based on a clear-eyed assessment of the CCP’s intentions and actions, a reappraisal of the United States’ many strategic advantages and shortfalls, and a tolerance of greater bilateral friction. Our approach is not premised on determining a particular end state for China. Rather, our goal is to protect United States vital national interests ..... Our competitive approach to the PRC has two objectives: first, to improve the resiliency of our institutions, alliances, and partnerships to prevail against the challenges the PRC presents; and second, to compel Beijing to cease or reduce actions harmful to the United States...

Old cases and new cases of Covid-19 all counted as new cases in CDC test tallies.

Old cases and new cases of Covid-19 have been counted as new cases by the CDC and many states. This is just being acknowledged now, even though this screwed up data was being used to plan state openings.  The jaw-dropping error results in over-stated bad news.

There are viral tests to find out who has active virus in their system.  There are antibody tests to find out who has recovered from or begun to recover from the virus.   A big difference but the results of these tests have been dumped into a single bin.  In some cases, people weren't even aware they were doing it.    Story at The Atlantic which has been changing the conversation, not just writing stories.

Favourite quote:

Before and After are Different

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ashish Jha, the K. T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told us when we described what the CDC was doing. “How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.”

KISS or Complicate?: A simpler view solves problems. So does complication.

E=mc2 simplifies so much but looking for a simple statement is ruinous when the facts are not simple.  The example explained to me the other day is the random number generator in the computer game, Minesweeper. 

It places hidden mines on a board and looks random but isn't quite. When the code is used to pick a "random" point in a many-dimension grid, patterns emerge but you'll never see them if you just apply the code to a single row of numbers.  The non-random element is that each new iteration starts from the last one.

Immunoglobulin molecule

People great and small  (like myself), like to simplify and reduce the random messiness of life.  A delightful line showing this tendency:  "The (French) Academy, founded in 1635, is the official guardian of the French language and therefore is charged with the daunting task of defending the language from its own speakers."    Less savoury examples include blaming all bad things on Donald Trump,  equating weather with climate, and despising all nation states.

Each of us finds a simplifying shortcut, a TOE  (Theory of Everything) to make sense of confusion.  A little kid may go with "Mom says so".    Men five thousand years ago may conclude that stars and stones are people and build a culture around it.

I end with Richard Feynman's thought which handles complexity well:

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".

Decide for yourself if a mask helps. Look at this picture of a cough.

Only the mask on the coughing and sneezing person is the mask that makes a difference..  The photo (with special lighting) of a cough makes it plain.    My takeaway:  Medical people want masks because they are up close to sick people.   Coughing and sneezing people protect their neighbours by wearing a mask but should be at home.  Healthy people who aren't coughing and sneezing and standing right up close to other people probably don't need a mask.  To put one on is kabuki theatre.

Crazy Talk About Ventilators Has Disappeared. Think Oxygen

Hardly a month has passed since we were being told the ventilator stock of a state was the only hope to survive the yellow peril, covid-19.  It drove me crazy seeing this in extremis measure being treated as the foundation for public health.  There were umpteen different models.being patched together from other technologies, high and low tech.  Worldwide, few places are equipped to use ventilators well and trained staff is in short supply.   Breathing has to be suppressed, a hazardous move, to allow the ventilators to function better.  Worse  yet, ventilators were killing some people.

Bonnie Glick, Deputy Administrator for USAID comments near the 28 minute mark of this American Thought Leaders Video:     We help supply ventilators but only to countries with hospitals and staff that can use them.  More important is shipping oxygen.  Even poor countries have ways of supplying oxygen.  The bonus oxygen doesn't require suppression of autonomic breathing or the use of forced air.  "We know that oxygen will save even more lives than ventilators".

As the saying goes, "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV".   The expert communicated by video and some of that intelligence was picked up here.

By The Numbers: Taking away your liberty didn't save lives. Update: Europe too

Wallethub charted all states by the liberty they took away in the name of safety and the number of covid-19 deaths they had to date.  I added "Has Democrat for Governor".

Takeaways:
1.   The states that took away the most liberty with the hardest lockdowns did no better than the others, maybe a little worse.
2.   The states that took away the most liberty were almost all headed by a Democrat governor.

Comment on chart:  The information was released May 19 but is changing rapidly by state moves to restore liberty .  The colour coding is just meant to highlight four corners of the graph:  Green is low death and high liberty.  Red is high death and high liberty.   Blue is low liberty and low death.  Gray is low liberty and high death.      The observation about Democrat governors is taken from Breitbart's article here.

Update May 22.  Europe is reporting the same, that lockdowns didn't mean lives saved. Bloomberg story.

China Legally Stole Sri Lanka's Only World Class Port for 99 Years.

We've heard tales China was entrapping small nations in infrastructure debt and then grabbing stuff.  Here's detail from USAID's Bonnie Glick:

"In Sri Lanka, the government signed on the dotted line without reading all the fine print and the fine print indicated that if Sri Lanka was not able to pay the debt servicing on the loan that it took out from the People’s Republic of China to build that port - that world class port - that port would be turned over on a 99 year concessionary lease to the Peoples Republic of China, and it’s –oh by the way – significantly situated for defense maneuvers as well. Sri Lanka bought this story that they would have ten thousand port calls a year. In the first year of operation, there were 37. And so, when it became clear that Sri Lanka would not be able to pay that debt servicing, China swooped in and has taken a 99 year concessionary lease possession of Sri Lanka’s largest world class port."

Transcribed from the opening remarks of the interview with Jan Jekielek of American Thought Leaders.  The supporting information below is copied from Wikipedia:

More info: Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa Port - Wikipedia

ALSO DJIBOUTI: At the 17 minute mark in the same interview, Glick reports that China now holds all the strings there with the same play, also in a strategic position at the entry to the Red Sea.

No Wonder the Nova Scotia Police Were Hiding Shooter Documents

The police knew for twelve hours that the gunman was driving a fake police car and didn't tell the public.
I couldn't understand why documents were being withheld.  Now I do.  The RCMP didn't know how to deal with this, telling the public not to trust the RCMP.
Recently unsealed warrant.
Story and link extracted from theguardian.com  h/t  blazingcatfur.

"Susan Rice wanted it on record that President Obama had authorized her to lie, on advice from James Comey"

Writing this memo was the last thing Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice did, minutes before leaving office. You know it has to be important.    Succinctly summarized by John Hinderaker at Powerlineblog:     UPDATE below.

"She wanted it on record that President Obama had authorized her to lie, on advice from James Comey"

She lied to General Flynn who was coming in to occupy her position and the "Information ... as it relates to Russia" refers to information about their own improper Russia investigation into Trump people, not to giving secret information to Russians.

As usual, the best deep background and consistent source of original documents is from Sundance at TheConservativeTreeHouse.  The Hinderaker one-liner simplifies the takeaway.

UPDATE May 20:  White House counsel advised Susan Rice to write the CYA memo.

Wind Animation of Cyclone Amphan Landing in India and Bangladesh

Cyclone Amphan Making Landfall 6pm May 19 PDT.  India and Bangladesh threatened.  Sourced at Ventusky.com   Link to live tracker at Times of India.

"Downgraded to Category 3 from its previous Category 5 strength, Tropical Cyclone Amphan is expected to make landfall near India and Bangladesh border on Wednesday as a major storm, with catastrophic storm surge, high winds, and torrential rains."

Obama's Portrait in the White House: One version is Enemy Propaganda, one version is News.

The official President Obama portrait is ready to unveil in the white house.
Enemy propaganda reports that Trump Won't Unveil Obama's Official White House Portrait Any Time Soon, despite this being an amicable tradition in the past.
The news reports Obama's quote that Obama "has no interest in participating in the post-presidency rite of passage", despite this being an amicable tradition in the past.

Ugh.

Mouse Brain Has An Off Switch For Pain. Please Be True For People Too.

There is new hope for fixing chronic pain.  The mouse brain amygdala has a region that can profoundly damp the sensation of pain.  The amygdala harbors protocols for fight-or-flight and general anxiety.

Sufferers of chronic pain don't need to be reminded every minute of every day that something is wrong.  They got the message.  They deserve a break.

Previous searches were for brain locations that turn ON pain, hoping to disable the ON switch. This report describes a region that actively turns OFF pain.  A stimulus instead of an antagonist may do the trick.

The source paper in Nature is linked here.  The research was into why general anesthesia works.  They found a population of cells in the amygdala that were stimulated by it.

Six Foot Distancing Rule Is A Made Up Number

Social Distancing at 6 feet is the new gospel in Canada and the United States.  The number is a by-guess-and-by-gosh contraption and not the result of research.
Have a look at this chart for other countries with the 2 metre rule,the 1.5 metre rule and the 1 metre rule.  Different strokes for different folks but the same virus.

Just to be picky, the six foot rule is a 1.82 metre rule.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail weighs in May 20th.  The science for 2 metres is missing and  Australia has the 1 metre rule which makes it much easier for restaurants to open.

Requires all the on-air talent at CNN...

Seen at Instapundit.

If Shoe Stores Sold Only Size Six ... Bosses Mandate One Lockdown For The City Crowd And The Same For Country Counties.

People die in crowded urban areas.  Covid-19 is more like a ripple out in the country.  Fine tune that for the 5% in nursing homes and serious pre-existing conditions.

In Missouri, death rates are
436/million in St Louis city and county,
129/million in nearby St. Charles County and 28/million in all the rest of the state.   And four more examples posted at Gateway Pundit:







– Wisconsin (Milwaukee Co., 271/million; rest of state, 42 per million).
– Minnesota (Hennepin Co., 365 per million; rest of state, 61 per million).
– Florida (Mami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach – 182 per million; rest of state – 56 per million).
– Michigan (Metro Detroit’s 3 counties, – 999 per million; rest of state, 168 per million).


What if Governors and Provinces advised the subregions to decide how to apply recommendations.  If the county doesn't want to handle it then the senior government will act for them.

UPDATE:  CDC stats for United States.  86,000 people die per million per year. 

Infectious Isn't Bad

An infectious bug is one that travels fast through its environment, host to host, and has nothing to do with whether it kills you, gives the sniffles, or even passes unnoticed to the next host.  The "R nought" number is about infectiousness, not about danger.   A viral bloom will generally spread through the world in four or five weeks before being overcome by an army of antibodies.  Less infectious ones take a little longer.   (Idea expanded from Dr Suzanne Cahill interview here.)

UPDATE:  The video was censored by YouTube and Facebook.
Available now here: (At Bitchute).

What kills people? Surprises in chart.

The Infographic covering deaths worldwide is easy to follow in three colors:  When we get TV and newspaper stories they cover the small (gray) fraction of deaths that are accidental.   That's human nature.


Covid-19 shows up in the red communicable disease section, temporarily of note but not overwhelming.

The biggest section is the blue one we consider so normal it isn't newsworthy: deaths that are not from accidents and not from communicable disease.

Lockdowns have bonus points for Blue States: No Trump Rallies Until November 3rd.

The saving lives narrative works but so does keeping Donald J Trump out of your state's stadiums until after the election.  How cynical is that?

China CCP Hides Coronavirus Facts. 100,000,000 on new lock down for a half dozen cases?

Coronavirus lies from China, as usual.  A couple days ago there were 1 case in Wuhan and five cases in Heilongjiang.  Today 108 million people were put into lockdown  in the north-east.   Baghdad Bob would have got pointers from this.  The scale of action reveals the falseness of the reported data.

From Mike Doran's twitter feed and from Balding's World twitter feed:

Daily Evidence That What's Good For The Communist Party And Truth are Strangers.

640,000 cases of COVID-19 show up in a leaked internal database from China, about eight times more than admitted to the world.   Chinese officialdom doesn't lie.  It simply presents the CCP in the best possible light, truth not relevant.   The best write up seems to be at Foreign Policy

The natives are restless.  Today in New Jersey.

And this from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

  "People keep telling me that the long night of fascism is descending on America, but what I’m seeing is the biggest popular revolt against authority in my lifetime."

CCP Tore Up Its Promises to Hong Kong. Muscle men in the council chambers.

The two systems - one country promise is deliberately breached in Hong Kong by the CCP.  The latest is this phalanx of guards at the front of the chamber.  Some pro-democracy members were forcibly evicted.  I think the CCP calculus is that international wealth and standing that Hong Kong loses is offset by the face saved and by having created similar types of business within Mainland China.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly: GOOD ADVICE and the OODA loop.

This contrarian advice is sound.  If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
Doing something well is commendable but doing nothing at all in the face of opportunity or danger is failure.   The opportunities we neglect outnumber the ones we act on so there are more times to apply the "Worth Doing Badly" advice than "Do It Well Or Don't Do It At All" advice.

Why is this good advice, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly"?
Because the perfect is the enemy of the good and because when we recognize a problem or opportunity it's because it hasn't been acted on and hasn't been figured out.   Because we start in ignorance of how to get the outcome, we will make second best choices and mistakes.

The few creative artists I have known seem to share a common principle.  When something gets into their head, they go and do it or make it while most of us just chuckle to ourselves or mention the idea over a glass of beer.

That is what the OODA principle is for.
Observe-Orient-Decide-Act
Repeat.
Jump in, get your feet wet, sort out what you learned to improve and jump in again.
The first time it may be done badly.  Get over it!
If you are doing this briskly and have competition, the competition is always playing catch-up. 
"Forty second" John Boyd developed the OODA concept.
Video clip, in his own words.

Controlled demolition fail

From Turkey comes this demolition fail.   There were experts on hand to make this happen. 

The building flips right over.