Found him! The Capitol Mob was a bad scene. Really bad PR for Trumpists: A bunch of weirdos all with Trump flags, zip ties, all sorts of nonsense. But now, finally, those who think that Trump is good have finally found the culprit: John Sullivan. He was among the idiots on January 6th. And he is not a “Patriot”. Brown skinned even. For those who are willing to believe that the election was stolen it is also clear now that all thing bad were just his work. And probably lots of other ‘antifa’ people that their sleuthing and hearsay will “find”. Just as their pole watches (their spellings, not mine) found lots of evidence for voter fraud, they will find that Jan 6th was a BLM/antifa project all along. You know: No real patriot (or True Scottsman) would do the things of January 6th.
And you just need a kernel, an grain to grow a crystal of lies around it. For many people it actually will be that January 6th was the work of John Sullivan. Together with a bunch of other people, who just happen to be elusive to the cameras of ‘the media’. The next thing in the big reframing will be a term for that day, those events. A new name that has this ridiculous blame shift somehow in it. And that is catchy too. It will take the whole narrative and put it on its head. Flat earth is always there to make any other Internet created story look less ridiculous in comparison.
And lots of people will believe it. They are deeper in this kind of delusion than one would fear.
Ja. Gerade gestern verstarb ein Mensch eine Stunde nach einer Corona Impfung. Bis gestern wurden in Deutschland 207.992 Menschen geimpft weil sie über 80 Jahre alt waren. Wenn man die Altersterblichkeit im Kontext der Bevölkerungszusammensetzung dann kann man rechnen das die Chance zu versterben bei 4000 zu 1 liegt wenn man dann erstmal 80 oder älter ist. Corona und seinen Einfluss lassen wir da jetzt einmal weg. (2008 waren 34% der 395.000 verstorbenen Männer und 64% der 450.000 verstorbenen Frauen octogenarian, also ca. 422.000). Gestern wurden 78.116 Menschen geimpft. Ca 40.000 nach alters indikation. Statistisch würde man mit 10 Toten rechnen. Aber der Tot kommt meist ja nicht so unverhofft.
Mit B.1.1.7 ist genauso wenig zu spaßen wie mit B.1.351. Egal ob das Virus nun in England oder Südafrika mutierte: Es erzeugt eine neue Dynamik deren genaues Ausmass niemand wirklich vorhersagen kann. Erst Anfang April 2020 begannen die Zahlen in Deutschland zurückzugehen. Wieviel dabei dem Lockdown und wieviel dem Wetter geschuldet werden kann ist nicht klar. Die täglichen Infektionszahlen scheinen um 20.000 herum zu schweben. Es wird stetig betont dass diese “wegen der Feiertage” nicht belastbar seien. Mitte Januar ist dieses Argument ein bisschen wie der letzte Partygast der für sich und den Gastgeber den Plattenspieler um 5 Uhr bedient, während die anderen Gäste um 3 Uhr gingen.
Schon Ende letzten Jahres wurde viel Aufhebens um die Impfung gemacht. Es wurde immer wieder betont dass es ja ein Unternehmen in Mainz war dass das schnellste Vakzin erfunden habe. Biontech wurde mit 375 Millionen von der Bundesregierung gefördert. In den USA wurden 1.25 million Dosen an einem Tag verimpft. In Deutschland waren es 60858. Für jede deutsche Impfungen macht man also in Amerika ungefähr 20. Wenn man die 4 mal größere Bevölkerungszahl auf der anderen Seite des Atlantiks in Betracht sieht, dann sind wir hier immer noch 5 mal so langsam.
Das ist schon ein ganz anderes Bild als im Sommer letzten Jahres. Deutschland dachte damals, man habe das schon im Griff. Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall. Aktuell meint man in der niedersächischen Impfhotline das man dann am 1. February vielleicht Termine machen können.
Both the Big Tech and China are widely being hated. With varying degrees of intensity. Changing over time, and in different levels from person to person.
Neither on a direct personal level nor via any indicators I came across any signs that people themselves would change their ways of doing things based on their feelings towards Google, Xi and everything around them.
People spend more time than ever on their phones (assembled in China, running on services provided by Big Tech).
The “Trade War” that Trump attempted left China with a growing economy and global influence.
There is lip service by politicians around the globe. All the while Bezzos and Musk jockey for the pole position of riches.
And people do, what they do. Giving their money and attention to China and Big Tech. While being upset about it in the same time. And hardly anybody notices.
Seems that the US is making great headway. They did well by buying lots of Biontech/Pfizer last July. Right now some populists do really well if it comes to vaccinations: Trump, Johnson and Netanyahu all lead the pack. A diverse set of reasons. But still worth noticing. Also interesting how it does not want to fit into the narrative that “those guys” (for the record: I am not fond of any of them either) are more like science-ignoring idiots. Well, they knew how to pick a winner if it comes to vaccinations. RNA vaccines – even though conceptually sound – were not proven. They had no track record.
One could speculate to find reasons. None of these could be conclusively proven or disproven. It could be that the populists fucked up spring so badly that they were in the most dire need for a miracle. They could think that social measures would further the other side of the aisle, so they would try to avoid them at all costs. Or they don’t have ‘experts’ around them that are just mid level people. Those that could not imagine that RNA based vaccines would work.
Who knows.
It is great that Israel, the UK and the US do so well in terms of vaccinations. Acquiring immunity via an actual infection is rather risky. Cov-parties never became a think like Pox-parties. For good reasons.
Wednesday news spread quickly that a rioter got shot in the Capital building. A couple hours later the ‘death count’ was increased to four. In the info tsunami that those couple of hours kicked off information about the three people was not easy to come by.
Most recently, my heart goes out to: Air Force Veteran, Ashli Babbit, Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood. I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time.
Melania Trump, January 11th
An interesting order: First the Mob then the Law Enforcement. Those people who are so dear and close to her husband. That you can get killed by a gunshot if you forcefully enter the Capitol is a real possibility. Likewise if a protester (who probably calls himself a patriot) rams a fire extinguisher in the back of your head. We do not know why Mr Liebengood took his own life. The entire Trump line is strange, so nothing really surprises.
This leaves us with three medical emergencies among the Trumpmob. What else was it, if not that? If you ask Doug Sweet then he will tell you that it was Antifa. He was there. Has an arrest warrant to proof it, and yet he claims it was ‘the other guys’. I guess the nice thing about delusion is that it can basically explain everything in ways that please you.
It has often been said that Mr Trumps core support is made out of middle aged white men from average aka lower social status.
I am aware that statistics based on an n of two are highly speculative. Your odds to die 2019 as a 45-54 American 883 per 100,000 for the entire year. So if you take the 2 fatalities and assume normal mortality you end up with a crowd size of 41,493.
Depicting people one had essentially two methods: Making a three dimensional replica, or mapping what we believe to see on to a surface. These days, with glowing rectangles pretty much 99% of where our attention goes, most of what we see if the later kind.
Historically it was not the case. Comparing both methods in antique times it is obvious that sculpture is way more skilled and truthful that wood panels or frescos of the time:
Venus of Milo and Fayum wood panel
400 years difference, but everything else that I could find as an example for a flat depiction was so bad that I felt it would over stress my point.
Once the dark ages were behind us it seemed that painting had caught up:
Bernini and van Honthorst
Again: there are countless painters that would have made my point better than van Honthorst. But even if with him we can clearly see that painting catches up.
Why? Or why did the skills of antique artisans did not flow as unencumbered into flat works?
One could conjecture that glas coverings for windows had a significant influence. During antique times wood panels and frescos where the main means of depictions. A fresco you can hardly sell or steal. Wood panels back then were small, and would ago not very well. Only when canvas became available a large flat pane became available to painters. These would also scale up very nicely. And a canvas was an instant object. Heck: you could even roll it up for easier transport and storage.
Humidity control is an important factor in the conservation of canvas and wood panels alike. A hygrothermograph in the corner of a room is usually a good indication that you might see something interesting and or of value on it walls.
Before there were glas panes covering windows it would also mean that you would let weather in together with sunlight. If it should snow in Rome then you see flakes descending the dome of the Partenon.
Having a closed room with a fire in it is a crude but possible solution, but you lack the light that you would need to appreciate a painting. So, only once people have rooms that were bright(ish) and dry(ish) would it make sense to invest allot of efforts to make movable pretty things that you put on your walls.
The US is a large and diverse country. Sociologically and geographically. There are many maps as graphical representations available. They are worth comparing. Here we see the recent NY Times Covid map next to other data sets that could have an impact on the epidemic. Like income level:
Income 2011 vs Covid January 2021
Blue collar jobs yield lower incomes, and they can not be as easily socially distanced and white collar ones. But California, Oregon and Main break the hypoythesis of “poor counties have more covid”.
Republic vs Democrat presidential election 2020 vs Covid January 2021
Mask attitudes and acceptance of other social distancing patterns correlate with political leanings. California does not fit this narrative. Colorado vs Oklahoma could support it, but then the pattern of cases in New Mexico suggest the opposite.
population density vs Covid 19 cases January 2021
Clearly: if you people live closer together then this make virus spread easier. Actually: For the virus to spread you only seem to need a 7/11. People live socially everywhere. Yes, in NYC you see easily thousands of people each day, but it appears that you can’t catch Covid from that attractive person on the other side of the street that you noticed while going to work.
December Temperatures vs Covid January 2021
This is our first winter with Covid. Of course everybody hopes it will be the last one two. Both Fauci and Drosten already talked in the beginning of 2020 about it. They both strongly suggest that this would be a hard time. So one could surmise that cold is good for team-virus. It seems that it also can be too cold for Covid to spread. The northern plains have much less of a problem now that it is really cold up there than those states in tempered climate.
It snowed in Spain in the last days. It would be interesting to follow their cases in the next weeks. If they go down then that will be very interesting.
The 45th President bookended his political phase with two similarly outlandish claims aimed to delegitimize the 44th and 46th President respectively.
While he jumped on the birther nonsense, he was instrumental in constructing the steal narrative that ultimately drove some looneys into congress. Through broken doors, not so much via electing them.
As of January 10 it is not exactly clear what will happen next. I was not a fan of efforts to impeach him. But then I realized that a potential impeachment on January 19th might be good thing: It gives Trump something that he can loose. It might prevent him from trying any further Hail Mary stunts during his last days in (it feels sad to write these words) office.
He no longer can start a war via Twitter. So there is that. Actually removing his Internet presence is the biggest single event that ever happened to the Internet. Others had magnitudes of more impact, of course. But launching Facebook or Youtube were gradual processes. Kneecapping this man is significant. And it is not only Twitter: Amazon stops hosting wannabe competitors. For services of a certain scale it is the end if the few very large cloud services tell you to go fish.
Switching provides isn’t that easy anyway I suppose.
Of course nonsense will not magically vanish from the Internet. Conservative people will not turn magically liberal.
Millions of people believe the story that they have been told. That Hydroxy would be the way cure for Covid, that Mexico would pay for the wall, that Clintons broken email server is the biggest problem the US faced ever.
Everybody prefers it not to up end his / her belief system. Our brains assume (falsely) that it is metabolically expensive and must be avoided at all costs. Only since a very short time can a person exist outside the direct social interaction with others. We developed while being dependent on band of our own. Presenting a consistent predictable position is helpful in creating stable social bonds.
But being stuck in a mindset, defending opinions and beliefs as if you defend your own existence is entirely stupid. In little things it is entirely random why we put the ketchup bottle not in the door of the fridge. Still two normal people can have a heated argument over it. The moment it seems that you randomly put the thing where you did your mind already and automatically has constructed a justification for it. Thoughts that make you look good, that make you feel right have magical tailwind in your mind. Strangely not unlike those that “proof” that you are a worthless POS. Later one more when you are on your own and debate with yourself.
While flipping TV channel one can come across a person that says something. In some situations it is not directly clear which party the person is affiliated with. People want to know though. You’ll be hard pressed to find a person in a US “news channel” opiniating along without also seeing a clear indication of his DEM / GOP affiliation. These days, when I see unknown congressmen or women quoted in a paper then I go to wikipedia to first check which side they are on. That is stupid.
But many people have it even more extreme. They are on the Trump Train. And they are cut off from their supply. They sit in a field somewhere. Just a week ago they were in a cozy yet noisy compartment. While they were in the checkout line, avoiding to get mad about everything they see, they could check what their guys had written. How he had created more liberal tears. No more.
I really wonder how life of some of those 80 million twitter followers is. For a while this picture
was something that I would not dare to dream off. As usual elation fades quickly. Too quickly. The orange man made us mad. By lying. By using his social media presence to bully others. To step on good ideas. To prevent things that could have saved lives. That could have made life better. DJT and his Internet presence broke things, it did not build anything to speak off. Except for a certain kind of rage in his disciples. There is a difference between the 74 million people that voted for him and the monkeys that walked on marble on Wednesday. The difference is not a hard edge though. There is no clear border between normal people trying to have the right values and those that think that HRC eats babies.
This gradient is the natural fallout from the fact that the whole right wing nonsense that started with the Tea Party is not based in any actual ideas. There is no canon. “America First” can justify basically everything. There is spirit. Just a grunt. Some feeling of injustice. Some anger. Directed at whatever & whomever. As long as the story is good.
Wednesday it appeared as if the grand children of the village people wanted to stage a quick reunion in congress. Although most of them were not exactly Friends of Dorothy. Their attire, flags, motives and agenda were all over the place. They were all equally angry and motivated. They wanted to ‘stop the steal’. But how delusional do you have to be to believe that things could be changed by their actions.
Actually their actions did change things. They sank the boat of their leader. Decisively. If they was a swamp in Washington, then they drained it in an hour. By the evening of that day it had been paved over. And those that wanted to get rid of DJT drove on it at break neck speed. It just took a couple of not well guarded doors and a bunch of amped up idiots to bring the orange phase of the American Presidency to an abrupt end. Amazing.
It is fun to imagine him fuming, trying to unsuccessfully relaunch something. Just to fail. Again and again. A downfall meme that nobody needs to create, we can build it in our head in an instant.
At this point hope that he does not cause any harm during his last 10 days. From January 21st on we then can do what would have been the best all along: Ignore him. He is an idiot with issues. And a piped piper for people that already fell for the Tea Party nonsense. Or would have were they not too young back them. Yes, they are much more numerous in 2020 then they were in 2010. And they will not go away.
Be that as it may: DJT didn’t have a good week. Lets put it that way. “All that winning”
Never let a good crisis go to waste: While the world is upset about Qanon crazies roaming through congress for a couple of hours the Trump administration keeps working on what they do: Giving land grants to mining companies. I am sure both sides hide the bribes that flowed for this well. But bribery is pretty much the only explanation why the Trump administration would move on this deal.
