Thought For The Day - 25 April 2022 [update]

Bet on this. If Musk does get his hands on Twitter, that very minute he'll pull in wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024 and the rest of the Qanon traitors. Twitter becomes 100% Right Wingnuts 100% of the time. Will sane folks stay on?? Seems unlikely. Batshit J. Moron's bespoke social network has floundered, which is to say; there really aren't as many crazies as the Right Wingnut Reichstag would have the world believe.

[3:13 pm the countdown begins]

Splainin Trump - part the second

A new-ish series; first installment was some years ago, but now that wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024 is being pushed past even his unlimited limits by Gov. DeMented, he's more regularly goining nutsoid. I couldn't be happier.

Today he breaks wind.

Wind turbines are an icon for the energy transition and the subject of heated debate in Washington. They've been mocked by prominent members of the GOP, including former President Donald Trump, who recently called wind the "worst form of energy."

Here's the full quote, from the link:

It's so sad when you see that they are approving these windmills — worst form of energy, the most expensive. You talk about carbon emissions, well they are making them. More goes into the air than if you ran something for 30 years. When operating properly, wind turbines do not create carbon emissions as a result of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

So, let's look into the expensive allegation. Well, no. But, of course, this analysis is from the lying Woke Left Gummint.

Land-based utility-scale wind is one of the lowest-priced energy sources available today, costing 1-2 cents per kilowatt-hour after the production tax credit. Because the electricity from wind farms is sold at a fixed price over a long period of time (e.g. 20+ years) and its fuel is free, wind energy mitigates the price uncertainty that fuel costs add to traditional sources of energy.

But, from the point of view of the fossil fuel cabal, any large scale form of electric power which isn't fossil fuel driven is a threat. The problem with an electric based society/economy (which wind, hydro, and solar make feasible) is that the transport sector, currently fueled by gasoline and diesel, can't easily leverage it. Yes, there remains the wet dream of battery powered cars everywhere, and may be trucks, but that dream depends on a very long term source of, at least, nickel and lithium. But we already know how to leverage electricity in transport: Europe has been doing it for about a century, electrified trains and trolleys. But that means cities gain sway, since laying track into the hinterlands (which the USofA had before GM put an end to it) these days counters the Real Americans live in the rural places truth. My father was born in 1915, and said that he could go between Springfield and Boston on trolleys, town to town. Turns out, he wasn't lying. Here's the Boston end.

And another bit of history.

The Hartford & Springfield was a very important piece of the electric railway system in New England. It was not only the link between the upper and lower Connecticut Valley, but it was also the only link between the entire street railway network of southern and northern New England. This connection allowed travelers to travel between New York and Boston by trolley.

Given the bias in elections, which the Right Wingnuts have been augmenting since 2020, the "I ain't giving up my F-150 and my dog for no trolley!" attitude, they rural rubes wouldn't even take it even if it's free. Freedom!!!!!!

I Told You So - 15 April 2022

More than once in these missives (and other musing elsewhere), I've opined that any vaccine, whether mRNA or adenovector or protein, that targets the Spike of Covid(s) is doomed to fail in time. A better target is necessary. It's just a matter of how much, if by 'fail' we agree that a proper vaccine is neutralizing. The approved vaccines are neutralizing... against wild-type Covid-19. They were formulated to that specific Spike, so they stop transmission so long as Covid-19 doesn't breed variants. The key to eliminating Covid, in the way smallpox and measles have been, is finding a stable, yet still neutralizing, target that isn't Spike. And, of course, getting said vaccine into arms. We might have, and this is just my fever dream, contained Covid if the Red staters had gotten shots in the first place. Covid had half a country's worth of morons to breed inside. No wonder it's won so far.

Of course, we soon learned that Covid-19 doesn't stand still, unlike measles which is frequently offered as the archetype of successful vaccination. Well, confirmation.

Companies are working on vaccines that would target more stable regions of the virus, including the stem of the spike protein, that doesn't appear to mutate as much. That might create more durable immunity that could stand up to to the shape-shifting of the viruses' variants.
[my emphasis]

The report doesn't say how it is that targeting Stem, or any location other than Spike, would be neutralizing. There was good reason to target Spike, after all.

Of course, finding a target that is both stable and neutralizing will be no mean feat. If at all.

π in The Face - part the second

Well it's been a week since the first π in the face, so let's get an update on the state level spread of Covid, from the CNN graphs.

The only data point you need to know (but go have a look in any case): only 10 states falling both on the 7-day average and last 3 day (and, as noted before, some are not contiguous days) bars.

Overall, infections are climbing over the last couple of weeks. So far not the Space Shuttle solids ignition that was Covid-ο. Fauci be praised.

π in The Face

Well, let's get an update on the state level spread of Covid, from the CNN graphs.

First, the states rising on 7 day average: 20, an increase from the last time

Second, the states rising on the last 3 day (which aren't always the last 3 calender days) bars: 10, a decrease from the last time.

It need be noted that ever more states are limiting their data reporting. Not a smart move.

5Geee

Regular reader may recall that these missives mused that mmWave 5G wouldn't ever really exist. The physics of the spectrum make it physically impossible, Verizon's bloviating not withstanding. Yes, you can watch that football game in front of you in the stadium on your smartphone, but is that all there is? Yup.

Today, likely not for the first time, I saw/heard a '5G UltraWide Band' advert in the last few minutes. What??? So, off to the Verizon site; what equipment??? Well, here it is:

Your 5G Home Internet equipment setup (i.e., indoor, outdoor) depends on your location's 5G signal strength. If your setup is:
Indoors: We use the 5G Internet Gateway as an all-in-one router and receiver.
Outdoors: We use the 5G Internet Gateway as your outdoor receiver and the Verizon Router is used Indoors.
Note: A Wi-Fi extender may be recommended if needed.

Sounds like just what I told you would be needed: a transceiver on your roof, and lots of wifi in the house.

You really need to read the whole page. Not the Nirvana that 5G was promised. You can't fool Mother Nature.

Thought For The Day - 1 April 2022

Another April Fool blast. Some have been making noise that Covid-ο infection has fallen to levels akin to last summer. Well, not so much if you actually look at the data.

The post-first-surge minimum was around 1 July of last year. Being around 4th of July, spotty reporting is likely, so picking late June makes more sense. 27 June recorded 4,087. 31 March, yesterday, 38,273. So, yeah, we're over Covid.

Using the CNN state mini-graphs yields 14 rising states, on the 7 day average. If you look at just the bar graph for the past three days, that count is 26. "Happy days are here again."

All Fools Day

Today's Krugman column is kind of interesting, in a disingenuous sort of way. The title, and premise, of the essay is that Putin is in the process of destroying world trade, and thereby sending the world economy into, at least, deep recession.

So are we about to see a second deglobalization? The answer, probably, is yes. And while there were important downsides to globalization as we knew it, there will be even starker consequences if, as I and many others fear, we see a significant rollback in world trade.

For once, I find Krugman full of shit. There, I said it. From the beginning of the USofA, if nowhere else, capital has always moved to the most autocratic locations it could find. New England mills moved to the 'business friendly' Confederate states. When that didn't prove profitable enough, Mexico and the Caribbean dictators were next. Once sea and air transport became reliable, Eastern dictators came next. The very idea that Russia would be a lawful vendor was preposterous.

It was, brace yourself, Uncle Ronny who tried to stop the Europeans from becoming beholden on Russian gas. That from a time when Republicans saw the truth about Russia: our sworn enemy forever.

The Russians will earn much-needed hard currency from sale of the natural gas, and the prospect of losing it makes them equally dependent on Western Europe and less likely to use the gas as political leverage.

That report, if you don't go read (and you very surely should) is from 1982; pre-Putin to boot. The Monitor, being a lackey to capital interests, was for Russian gas. And it made the usual excuses.

In the end, American capitalists will ignore the evils of dictatorship if cozying up to a bunch of them gets them an additional penny of profit. Was true in 1800, and still true today.

Toward the end Krugman dons his rose colored aviator glasses, you know them from the 70s:

So if you're a business leader right now, surely you're wondering whether it's smart to stake your company's future on the assumption that you'll keep being able to buy what you need from authoritarian regimes. Bringing production back to nations that believe in the rule of law may raise your costs by a few percent, but the price may be worth it for the stability it buys.

As if American capitalists have ever cared about the rule of law. Who is he kidding? The American capitalist depends on the dictator to control labor, resources, and money to their benefit; if some baksheesh be needed; so OK. Well, one of them might find out a different hard way. Governor DeMented and the rest of the Redneck Bigots running the state are about to strip Mickey Mouse of a prized perk given to them by the rule of law in Florida. 'We made the law, we will change the law, we are the law.' Bet they didn't see that coming. Turns out, most civilians didn't know they had the perk.