Events

Happy Hanukkah! Now read these: Thomas Edsall summarizes the sociology of resentment, hypothesizing that status is the single biggest indicator of political affiliation. Jelani Cobb digs into the Republican strategy in the Loeffler-Warnock race for Georgia's junior US Senate seat. The US Postal Service warns that it has absolutely no more capacity, and is near gridlock. (If only we could, you know, fund it.) It looks ever more likely that two weeks from Friday, the UK will crash out of Europe with no...

I posted a table about a week ago showing the number of American deaths per day from various disasters that we've had over our history. I did a bit more research, and we've had a lot more Covid-19 deaths, so I've updated the table: Average daily deaths from 1918 flu, October 1918: 6,290 Galveston hurricane, 9 Sep 1900: ~6,000 Battle of Antietam, 18 Sep 1862: 3,652 Covid-19, 9 Dec 2020: 3,411 Puerto Rico hurricane, 7 Aug 1899: 3,389 Covid-19, 6 Apr 2020: 3,156 San Francisco Earthquake, 18 Apr 1906...

The Electoral College has voted, and with no surprises, as of 16:37 Chicago time Joe Biden has received the requisite 270 votes to be elected President of the United States. And yet, we had a few surprises today: The loathsome STBXPOTUS fired his almost-equally-loathsome Attorney General, Bill Barr, which could not have happened to a better couple. The US passed 300,000 Covid-19 deaths today. Probably 250,000 could have been prevented. Security guru Bruce Schneier advocates for regulation of persuasion...

The Electoral College started voting early this morning. Each state delegation casts its votes separately, usually in the respective state capitol buildings. The New York just voted a few minutes ago, bringing the totals so far today to Biden 161, STBXPOTUS 158. California votes late in the day, so once again it may seem like it's close but it really isn't. In just a few hours, Joe Biden will officially be the President-Elect of the United States. The House and Senate will count the votes in a joint...

I'm not good at it, personally. But NBC News has some advice they've titled "How to talk to your friends and family about Covid, vaccines and wearing masks:" “You always want to offer your empathy first,” said Amy Pisani, executive director of Vaccinate Your Family, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to vaccine advocacy. “If they have a personal story, start with your shared values.” Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia in...

I mean, more than usual. In our delusional fading days of empire, Kyle Edward Williams states the obvious: [I]t’s worth pondering just how close we came to a hostile private sector takeover of the American political tradition. Modern America has long been infatuated with the transcendental wisdom ascribed to business sense, so it’s something of an oddity that the U.S. has not elected more businesspeople to the high office, even if many have tried. Indeed, it’s never really been the case that America has...

My company gives us the usual American holidays off, and adds two "floating holidays" you can take whenever you want. I took my first one in January and just remembered last week that I hadn't taken the second one. So I took it today. Which gave me some time to read a bunch of things: The Atlantic's Derek Thompson wishes politicians in both parties understood how Covid-19 spreads. Paul Krugman wonders whether the president's efforts to kill Covid relief come from ignorance or cynicism. (I'd imagine...

Iceberg A-68a broke off from Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf in September 2017. It has drifted more or less intact since then, and later this month will very likely hit South Georgia Island in the south Atlantic: [UK] Government officials have been tracking the 4,200-square-km iceberg closely with the help of the British Royal Air Force, who conducted a reconnaissance mission over the iceberg capturing photos and videos of the large mass. “The sheer size of the A68a iceberg means it is impossible to...

The city's plan would vaccinate every adult who lives or works in Chicago in 2021: Initial vaccine doses will be sent to all 34 hospitals in Chicago, city officials said. Health care workers who treat COVID-19 patients or are at high risk for coronavirus spread will be first to receive it, city officials said. After health care workers, vaccines will be prioritized for a broad group of people including residents and staff at long-term care facilities, individuals at high risk due to underlying medical...

I saw a slightly-inaccurate version of this on Facebook and corrected it. Here's a list of the most single day, single cause deaths in American history, through yesterday today. See if you can spot the pattern: Galveston hurricane, 9 Sep 1900 (~6,000) Battle of Antietam, 18 Sep 1862 (3,652) Puerto Rico hurricane, 7 Aug 1899 (3,389) SF earthquake, 18 Apr 1906 (~3,100) Covid-19, 9 Dec 2020 (3,011) Terrorist attacks, 11 Sep 2001 (2,996) Covid-19, 3 Dec 2020 (2,861) Okeechobee hurricane, 17 Sep 1928...