Andreas Wacker

Expectations were low. Not only by means of the comical performance of 45. But also since Mr Biden is not exactly the poster child of vigor.

But whoever wrote his inauguration speech did really well. Also since it fit him. He was able to deliver it in coherence with his perceived persona. A President is a focus point of ideas. Of course it never matches the reality of a human being. An inherent schism that exists as long as the concept of leader does.

Boiling things down 45 had “America First” as the message, while 46 has “America Together”.

Overall the inauguration went really well. It was a fitting event for the transition from 45 to 46.

Lets hope that Richmond, Virginia stays peaceful. As of 1:14 PDT it seems to be. What happens today (or does not) will probably be instructive about what will happen on Wednesday.

Orange stains are hard to expunge. But worth the extra work, care and diligent effort …

EDIT: seems it all was peaceful. Which makes me think that January 6th will remain the first and last event of its kind. Which is good. For everybody.

He came down the escalator, then they ran up the stairs of the Capitol. That’s it. Over done. Page turned. Sure we still have lunacy running amok. Plenty off. But it no longer coalesces around an old man tweeting nonsense. Weird things will continue to pop up. But only up to the level of Birtherism. And Fox and the GOP might have learned a lesson in terms of what type of horse they put ahead of their cart. Engagement is all good and well, until it ends up in Jan 6th. Still need a name for that day. Save America Disaster? SAD? I am not good with that kind of thing. Obviously.

Corporate BS seems to have no limit. A pipeline vows to have zero Emissions. The purpose of said pipeline is it to get fossil fuels to where they get burned. In this case it is tar sands. As far as fossil fuels go tar sands are the most harmful Co2 offenders you could find. There is natural gas, which has more H to burn than Oil, and then there are tar sands who have a carbon foot print that is heinous.

This press release is the equivalent as hanging a motivational poster in the hallway of the colosseum that people passed on the way to their final stage.

The sad thing is that people don’t notice how ridiculous this pledge is.

In einer Krise der öffentlichen Gesundheit, wie zum Beispiel in einer viralen Pandemie, ist die Erzeugung von belastbaren Daten von hohem Wert.

Seit einem Jahr beschäftigt uns SARS-nCov-2 nun schon. Das Robert Koch Institut gibt es schon länger. Infektionszahlen geniessen darüber hinaus hohe Aufmerksamkeit in der Öffentlichkeit. Ver- oder Mißtrauen haben erhebliche Auswirkungen in der Akzeptanz.

In diesem Licht ist die derzeitige Qualität der Meldekette lächerlich:

Gestern gab es demnach 2 positive Tests in Rheinland Pfalz. Bei null könnte man ja denken dass das Faxpapier alle war. Aber 2?

Fish is the food that rather should not smell when you eat it. Which is a matter of timing depending on temperature those marine animal cadavers are kept in. I wonder if there will be dead fish around Downing Street. Probably not: The UK CCTV network is pretty dense. Easy to send the responsible parties the staggering clean up bill.

What used to describe fears of New Yorker partygoers last century describes today a random and odd coincidence: While Trump was President Apple Laptops were so shitty, that they featured a pointless touchbar and totally gave up on the idea ,that power cable should be unable to yank your device into the abyss when somebody stumbles over it.

There are signs that both Touchbar and Trump are history soon.

Wenn wir im Tempo der letzten 3 Wochen weiter impfen (55,166 im Durchschnitt), dann sind wir in Deutschland schon Ende 2023 damit fertig*. Hoffen wir mal lieber das bis dahin keine wirklich fiesen Mutationen auftreten. Allgemein heisst es ja, dass Mutationen (ganz im Virusinteresse) eher weniger schädlich für den Wirt sind. Aber verlassen möchte ich mich darauf nicht. Solange vor seinem aus dem Verkehr ziehen der Wirt genug Übertragungen stattfinden lies ist es dem Virus schnurz wie viele davon überleben.

*Der Einfachhalt halber von 70% Herdenimunität ausgegangen. Und so getan als ob eine Impfung ausreicht.

Unlike other people in her family FLOTUS still has her Twitter. So she would like to let us know just how wonderful her Be Best campaign has been. If her twitter attention goes over well with her husband, who got recently deprived from such perks, can only be guessed.

The video she had created is 3:30 long. It is long. It feels long. Just because you can operate editing software does not make you an editor. Just as there is (was?) the happy ukulele selling us tech stuff and services there is the happy piano, Einaudi reduced to the meaninglessness of Clayderman, that wants to give us an upbeat vibe.

But no, the video is not for us. It is a memento for Melania. That is probably why it is so long: It shows her in PR events. I would not be surprised if it would be a complete chronic of her time as a First Lady. She has staff that does this kind of thing. So having a summary in the end of the project is just what you do.

In light of the previous causes that started innocent enough with the renovation of the White House by Jacqueline Be Best is pretty dismal. Sure, Nancy Reagan didn’t get rid of drugs either. Turns out just saying no somehow was not enough. As it turned out drugs seemingly don’t adhere to “no means no” either.

The problem with Be Best is that is PR only. It does not even make an attempt to suggest how cyber bullying could be reduced for the youth. Just like with Nancy it starts with language: Just ask somebody who is younger then lets say 35 what “Cyber” means. Most people will think of Elons truck. Maybe Melanie is against electrical vehicles being part of Americas must cultured event: Trucks getting dirty.

Or maybe she somehow and magically and inconclusively succeeded behind the scenes: Was it maybe her campaign that got her husband banned from Twitter? Kids bully kids. That is horrible. It was. Middle school is hell for most people. Various reasons. Other pupils are a big part of it. Schools and society mostly ignore that problem. They leave people in between childhood and adulthood alone.

Historically that wasn’t always the case. Definitions of child / adult vary. Most traditional cultures have initiation rites. Groups of people often have in general. If group means overall population then coming of age is the event that triggers acceptance in society. The gauntlet to be passed makes belonging binary. Bad for handicapped humans, or others that might not pass muster. Good for those that do: Usually it is not easy to loose social acceptance at a whim. Middle School is not that caring. Nobody is ever hip enough. Very few go without fear day in day out into the maelstrom of other hormonally confused homo sapiens.

Modern society does not have much to offer here: The market will make you happy? Just grow up and you get to consume a shitload of stuff, then you will be happy? Or: Do as your elders have done. Have values based on a world when people cared about what an oxen was and what it could do for you and yours. Just have ‘traditional values’. Which ones? From which time?

Be that as it may: Be Best didn’t help. It do jack shit. But much like its figure head we all stop caring a long time ago.

By far the biggest ‘export’ that leaves Long Beach bound to China last you year, was, well nothing. 2020 was a tumultuous year for logistics. Numbers for Americas largest pacific port were no exception. A total of 3,998,340 TEUs arrived, while 1,475,888 TEUs set sail towards the middle kingdom.

In other words just 37% of all containers going to China had something in them. The others were as useful as returning your empty bottles to the recycling station.

Farmers still can’t get their American grown stuff over to the other side. It seems that it is not worth the wait for the food exports to be put into the (large) cans. It appears to be more lucrative to send the empty boxes back asap.

In the same time the Trump administration directed government agencies to minimize procurements from China yesterday. It is the chips in things that makes them nervous. My guess is that a certain level of the administration has been working on things like this for a while, planning to put them into action in the usual orchestrated fashion. But they rather dump them into the public sphere now then to hand them over.