Really interesting weather pattern this weekend.
There'll be blazing hot temperatures in the deserts, well over 100 degrees, and monsoon conditions, with thunder and lighting expected, especially in Southwest San Diego County.
Here's the beautiful Ms. Leah:
At the Los Angeles Times, "News Analysis: How the Delta variant could shake up the 2022 midterm election":
The virulence of the coronavirus Delta variant has ushered in a new phase of the pandemic, prompting tougher vaccine and mask requirements and stoking a volatile mood among Americans that poses peril for both political parties. Reflecting the urgent need to guard the country against climbing rates of infection, Republican and Democratic politicians alike have shifted focus in recent weeks. The GOP, mindful of lagging vaccination rates in conservative communities, has begun making more robust appeals for inoculations. Democrats, meanwhile, have embraced mandates as an additional tool to reach the remaining unvaccinated. In the clearest sign yet of this escalating response, President Biden announced Thursday a new slate of incentives — including $100 for those who get vaccinated — and requirements, ordering federal employees and contractors to get the shot or submit to regular testing, mask-wearing and social distancing. “I say to all those who are unvaccinated — please, please get vaccinated,” he said in an address from the East Room of the White House. “To the rest of America, this is no time to be despondent or let our guard down. We just need to finish the job with science, with facts, with the truth.” These moves are set against a backdrop of palpable anger in the country — be it the vaccinated seething at uninoculated holdouts or those chafing at new mask and vaccine impositions from the government. With the majority of American adults already inoculated, Republicans risk being seen as responsible for the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” given higher rates of vaccine hesitancy in their ranks. But Democrats, with control of both the White House and Congress, may shoulder the blame for any plunge in the nation’s hopefulness about halting the virus — and possibly hand the GOP a potent campaign issue in next year’s midterm election. Mandates will be denounced by the right in an effort “to fire up and mobilize their base against this big, overreaching federal government,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster. “None of this conversation is about what will fire up young voters, minority voters — the college-educated women who were key to the Biden coalition. Where’s their red meat?” The resurgence of the virus after months of declining infections is good news for nobody, least of all Biden, who made a return to pre-pandemic normalcy a centerpiece of his first months in the White House. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans are now pessimistic about the direction of the country, a 20-point slide in optimism from less than three months ago. But the president still gets relatively high marks for his leadership in combating the virus, significantly outpacing voters’ overall assessment of his job performance. “People have confidence that the Biden administration’s approach is competent,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, “and that he’s telling the truth.” That trust is now being tested by the return of mitigation measures. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued new guidance recommending that everyone wear masks indoors in public in parts of the country with surging transmission rates — just two months after the public health agency said indoor masking was unnecessary for the fully vaccinated. The reversal was not only a symbolic blow to the nation’s pandemic recovery, but also gave ammunition to administration critics. Public health experts wondered whether the CDC was too hasty in initially lifting the mask guidance. Republicans, meanwhile, jumped on the chance to decry what they say is bureaucratic overreach and raise the specter of harsher measures such as lockdowns. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the House GOP leader, criticized the CDC’s decision as “conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue in a perpetual pandemic state.” Republicans have been particularly apoplectic over new mask requirements set by the Capitol physician for the House of Representatives, with some risking a fine by refusing to wear a face covering. Aiming their ire at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), they questioned why the Senate does not have similar rules. (Nearly all senators have publicly stated they are vaccinated, while almost half of House Republicans have refused to disclose whether they are inoculated, according to CNN.) Pelosi, asked by reporters to respond to McCarthy’s complaints, appeared to call her fellow Californian “such a moron.” While the GOP has coalesced around antipathy for mask mandates, the messaging around vaccines has been more muddled. The Delta variant prompted a notable shift in Republicans advocating for the shot, albeit often in cautious terms that emphasize personal choice, while some in the party continue to loudly disparage vaccination with inflammatory rhetoric. The current wave of infections is hardly just a Republican problem...
Still more.
At the Los Angeles Times, "A stormy 24 hours: Stars in unexpected trouble at increasingly turbulent Tokyo Olympics":
TOKYO — These Olympic Games were always walking a tightrope, right from the beginning, teetering on the edge of disaster. From the first positive coronavirus test, there were fears the COVID-19 pandemic might land scores of athletes in quarantine, maybe wipe out an entire event like the men’s 100-meter final. From the first explosion of fireworks over an empty stadium during the opening ceremony, there were doubts that Tokyo could generate any real buzz without fans in the seats. But the Games instead are troubled by a different problem. The mental stress that drove Simone Biles to abruptly withdraw from the women’s gymnastics team competition on Tuesday night underscored a more alarming trend. These Olympics are losing their star power. Biles was merely the latest marquee name to suffer misfortune in the last few days. American swimmer Katie Ledecky — another ostensible “Greatest of All Time” — finished second in her initial race and fifth in another, before winning a gold medal in her last race Tuesday. Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka, whose face adorns countless billboards and television commercials in this country, was bounced from the women’s draw in the third round. “I’m disappointed in every loss,” Osaka said, “but I feel like this one sucks more than the others.” There have been bright moments in Japan. The host nation got early gold from skateboarder Yuto Horigome — another highly publicized athlete here — and in sports such as judo and table tennis. Victories by 17-year-old Alaskan swimmer Lydia Jacoby and Carissa Moore in the inaugural surfing contest provided the American team with highlights. “It was crazy,” Jacoby said after the surprising 100-meter breaststroke. “I knew I had it in me, but I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal.” Still, the list of disappointments has run considerably longer. Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray of Britain withdrew from singles, deciding to give his body a rest by playing only doubles. Positive coronavirus tests derailed Jon Rahm of Spain, the world’s top-ranked golfer, and Bryson DeChambeau of the U.S., ranked No. 6, before the start of play. The powerhouse U.S. women’s soccer team has looked shaky, barely escaping pool play with a 0-0 draw against Australia, and the men’s basketball team, stocked with NBA talent, hasn’t played any better. “I think that’s a little bit of hubris if you think the Americans are supposed to just roll out the ball and win,” Coach Gregg Popovich said...
Still more.
At Amazon, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism.
Especially in red states.
At NYT, "Some in Missouri Seek Covid-19 Shots in Secret, Doctor Says":
Even as the more contagious Delta variant drives a surge in infections, the Covid-19 vaccination effort has become so polarized in Missouri that some people are trying to get shots in secret to avoid conflicts with friends and relatives, a doctor there said. In a video circulated by her employer, Dr. Priscilla A. Frase, a hospitalist and the chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, Mo., said this month that several people had pleaded for anonymity when they came in to be vaccinated, and that some appeared to have made an effort to disguise themselves. “I work closely with our pharmacists who are leading our vaccine efforts through our organization,” she said, “and one of them told me the other day that they had several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, ‘Please, please please, don’t let anyone know that I got this vaccine.’” It was not clear how many people had tried to alter their appearance to avoid recognition, or how they had done so. Dr. Frase, who wore a mask in the video, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some people, she said in the video, were “very concerned about how their people that they love, within their family and within their friendship circles and their work circles, are going to react if they found out that they got the vaccine.” “Nobody should have to feel that kind of pressure to get something that they want, you know,” she added. “We should all be able to be free to do what we want to do, and that includes people who don’t want to get the vaccine as well as people who do want to get the vaccine. But we’ve got to stop ridiculing people that do or don’t want to get the vaccine.” The video was circulating online as public health officials in Missouri were confronting a resurgent outbreak, driven by the Delta variant and concentrated in the state’s south and southwest. The state’s vaccination rate lags that of most other states and the nation as a whole. According to a New York Times database, 41 percent of Missouri residents have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, compared with more than 49 percent nationwide. In Howell County, Mo., where Ozarks Healthcare and Dr. Frase are based, only 20 percent of residents are fully vaccinated. On Thursday, Missouri had a seven-day average of nearly 2,500 new cases of Covid-19 — an increase of 39 percent over the previous two weeks. Hospitalizations were up 38 percent over the same period. Studies suggest that the approved vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant, but public health experts say Delta poses a serious threat to unvaccinated populations. Despite that evidence, public health measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, including vaccinations, have been politicized across much of the country. In some places, including in parts of Missouri, being unvaccinated has become a point of pride for some people. In a Politico report this week, few people who were interviewed at Lake of the Ozarks, a popular tourist destination, acknowledged that they had been vaccinated, and some said that they had been shamed by friends or relatives. In the video, Dr. Frase said she was particularly troubled by the increased spread of misinformation about the vaccines. “My fear is that people are getting information from the wrong sources and therefore actually making uninformed decisions rather than informed decisions,” she said. “I want people to ask medical people,” she added, “or ask somebody that they trust who has good knowledge — not rely on the stuff that’s out there on social media, not rely on people who have opinions not based on facts.” It was “disheartening,” she said, “to have gotten to that place where we, as health care providers, thought that maybe things were finally back to whatever our new normal is going to be after this pandemic.”...Still more.
Glenn Greenwald:
The primary use of COVID discourse for liberal pundits is to be able to scream more loudly than usual their primary view -- Republicans are primitive, stupid troglodytes -- all while ignoring the actual demographics of who is vaccine hesitant, because those facts ruin their fun: https://t.co/bk1ObEMmh9
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 30, 2021
This is the coolest thing.
The firm offers 100 percent newly refurbished, zero miles vintage Mustangs. They use the same V-8 485HP in all their models.
There's a waiting list and they're not cheap --- varying around $200,000.
This one's a 1966 Mustang GT Convertible in Porsche Jet Black Metallic with Mercedes Porcellan White Leather.
So says the Los Angeles Times.
Here, "‘Breakthrough’ COVID-19 cases rising in L.A., but the vaccinated are still protected, data show":
Los Angeles County has seen a rise in “breakthrough” coronavirus cases as of late, but data continue to show those who are vaccinated for COVID-19 enjoy vigorous protection — even from the contagious Delta variant — and are far less likely to be hospitalized should they become infected. The latest figures underscore how the county’s recent coronavirus surge is different from the pandemic’s earlier spikes, both in terms of who is getting sick and how the virus is spreading countywide. In June, fully vaccinated residents made up 20% of all confirmed coronavirus infections in those 16 and older, according to figures from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. However, that same month, they accounted for only 8% of all COVID-19 hospitalizations. That trend has persisted into July. Over the first half of the month, roughly 26% of all diagnosed cases were in fully vaccinated residents, according to figures county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer presented this week. This means unvaccinated residents still accounted for almost three times as many infections, even though they’ve been a minority of the population since the start of the month. And despite the uptick in post-vaccination “breakthrough” cases, the proportion of those people becoming sick enough to require hospitalization over the early part of this month remained essentially flat from June. “Although vaccinated people are seeing a rise in new COVID diagnosis, they are primarily experiencing their infections not as severe illnesses that bring them to the emergency room, but as bad colds,” Ferrer said this week. Those who are unvaccinated, she continued, “simply do not have the same level of confidence if they get infected with this virus that it will lead to mild illness.” Out of the 504 people who died of COVID-19 countywide from April 1 to June 30, 96% were either unvaccinated or had not completed their inoculation regimen, data show. County health officials are trying to better understand the factors, such as being immunocompromised, that may put fully vaccinated people at risk of dying from COVID-19, Ferrer said. The rise of vaccinations is also shifting the trajectory of this summer spike. In previous surges, lower-income, densely populated areas were hardest hit as essential workers got COVID-19 on the job and then spread it at home. Areas such as East Los Angeles, the northeast San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles saw some of the worst spread. This time is different. As of July 17, communities that had high rates of transmission included downtown Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Venice, Hollywood Hills and Studio City, Ferrer said. “These are different communities from those with high case rates during our previous surges,” she said. “So far, it appears transmission in these areas is being driven mostly by community spread among young adults.” In some areas, she added, “there were several smaller outbreaks among persons experiencing homelessness that also may have contributed, just slightly, to the higher rates. And we also have noted that there have been outbreaks in some of these communities at food and bar establishments that also are contributing to the higher rates.” More than 53% of Angelenos have now been fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by The Times...
His efforts combating this destructive ideology are impressive and mounting.
At Legal Insurrection, "Critical Race Theory is a Societal Dead End":
DePetro (02:11): Bill Jacobson, right now we’re in mid to late July. When did critical race theory first start to appear on your radar and the radar of Legal Insurrection? Jacobson (02:23): Well, I’ve actually followed it really almost since law school, because one of my classmates, Kimberle Crenshaw is one of the developers of critical legal theory, and eventually critical race theory. So I’ve always been aware of it. That’s going back to 1984. And I was at Harvard Law School, which is where critical race theory and critical legal theory really developed. If you look at the early people, the early professors doing it, that’s where it was. So I’ve been aware of it for over 30 years. It was more and more on our radar, but it really jumped onto my radar last summer. It was almost now to the day that the president of Cornell University announced, in the wake of the George Floyd killing and the protests and the riots, that Cornell was going to become an “anti-racist” campus. And I really wasn’t sure what that meant, and they proposed summer reading for the entire university, Ibram Kendi’s book, “How to be an Antiracist.” And it was available for free to people who had a Cornell ID. So I read it, and I was absolutely horrified. It was an ideology which while they use the term “anti-racist,” that’s complete deception. It is actually a very racially discriminatory ideology. And so I read this thing, and I said, “Oh my God.” And we started to look into it at the foundation. We have researchers. And originally I was going to write an op-ed or an article someplace about it. And the deeper we got into it, the more we realized how pervasive it was. And so we rolled out a website in February [2021] called CriticalRace.org, which documents critical race training in higher education. We have an interactive map. You can click on a state, click on a school, and see what’s happening. And then we began to hear from people all over the country because the website got a lot of attention. We got a million views within a day of us taking it public...
Click the link for the full transcript.
People can be killed by bees as well. This man's lucky it wasn't worse.
At ABC News 7 Los Angeles:
He served 35 years in the Senate.
I have to agree --- a man of integrity.
At the New York Times, "Carl Levin, the Senate Scourge of Corporate America, Dies at 87."
And the Detroit Free Press, "Carl Levin, Michigan's longest serving U.S. senator, dies at 87":
Carl Levin, a liberal Democrat who rose from a prominent Detroit family to become Michigan’s longest-serving U.S. senator and helped set military priorities and investigate corporate behavior for decades before retiring in 2015, died Thursday. He was 87. The Levin Center at Wayne State University, which was formed on the senator's behalf after he left the Senate, put out a statement late Thursday, saying, "With great sadness and heavy hearts, the (center and family) announce the passing of Senator Carl Levin." Levin disclosed in his recently published memoir, "Getting to the Heart of the Matter: My 36 Years in the Senate," that he was diagnosed with lung cancer nearly four years ago, when he was 83. U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Twp., put out a statement on his uncle's passing: “Throughout my adult life, wherever I went in Michigan, from Copper Harbor to Monroe, I would run into people who would say, ‘I don’t always agree with Senator Levin, but I support him anyway because he is so genuine, he tells it straight and he follows through.’ Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called Levin a champion for Michigan. "He saw what we were capable of when we came to the table as Michiganders, as Americans, to get things done," she said. A defender of Senate traditions, even when his own party moved to change them, Levin, who was trained as a lawyer, twice served as chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee, despite having never served in uniform himself. As such, he helped set U.S. military strength and policy, including in Afghanistan and Iraq, though he voted against authorizing the use of force in the latter. He also investigated questionable Pentagon spending practices and played a key role in overturning the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule that prohibited gay service members from openly acknowledging their sexual orientation prior to 2011. As head of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he led probes questioning what he saw as corporate excesses, including those involving Enron, Apple and Goldman Sachs. As a Michigan senator, he defended the auto industry, supported the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008-09 and backed numerous projects including Detroit’s RiverWalk, the M-1 Light Rail and the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, among others. For years, he fought for a new Soo Lock — efforts that only began to bear fruit after he left office. “We could not aspire to better service than what he has given our country,” the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said of his Armed Services Committee colleague just before Levin’s retirement. McCain, a war hero, went on to call Levin “a model of serious purpose, firm principle and personal decency” and said that while they often disagreed, Levin never went back on his word...
Still more.
I've seen the previews for this, but I mute commercials and I don't care much for Matt Damon.
I can see why Ms. Amanda's pissed.
At the New York Post, "Amanda Knox blasts Matt Damon flick ‘Stillwater,’ claims it’s cashing in on her wrongful conviction."
And Ms. Amanda on Twitter, "Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER."
Stupid.
But this vaccine mandate business is taking off everywhere in California. It's out of control. Perhaps enough people will hate it to get Newsom recalled on September 14th.
At First Street Journal, "Los Angeles Unified School District plans on physically assaulting every student and employee, every week":
Have you ever had a COVID-19 test? I have, and it’s a very unpleasant experience. Basically, a nurse sticks a long, stick-mounted cotton swab — think of an eight-inch-long Q-Tip — up your nose to obtain the ‘material’ to be tested. In every state in the union, if you have not consented to this, it would be considered an assault. Does the Los Angeles Unified School District plan on making public education, something required by state law, to be contingent on consenting to be assaulted?The Los Angeles Unified School District will require all students and employees who are returning for in-person instruction to participate in weekly COVID-19 testing — regardless of vaccination status, the district announced Thursday. “This is in accordance with the most recent guidance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health,” Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly said in a statement.Really? The LAUSD employees are unionized. Have the District gotten the OK from the employees’ unions for this? What union is going to approve of this kind of employment condition? LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district, had previously said that fully vaccinated students and employees would not require testing. But as schools district-wide prepare to reopen for in-person instruction on Aug. 16, L.A. Unified said it’s closely monitoring evolving health conditions and adapting its response... In addition to regular testing, safety measures will include: masking for all students, staff and visitors; maximizing physical distancing as much as possible; continuing comprehensive sanitizing efforts, including frequent hand washing; upgraded air filtration systems; and collaborating with health partners and agencies to support free COVID-19 vaccination. So, if some parents are concerned about the safety of the vaccines, why would they bother with getting their children vaccinated if they will still be subjected to weekly testing, and all of the other COVID-19 restrictions? And since the vaccines have not yet been approved for children 11-years-old and younger, that means almost every student through the fifth grade will be unvaccinated. Even if the LAUSD changes its mind, and allows vaccinated students and employees to skip the weekly testing, the District are still planning on physically assaulting every student from pre-school through the fifth grade...
Yeah, I had the covid up-the-nose-test and it was perhaps the most awful (and painful) medical test I've had in my entire life.
Still more.
*Shrug.*
Wind power doesn't even come close to providing enough energy to charge America, and it's bad for the environment, especially eagles (and don't mention Third World exploitation).
Leftists are despicable ghouls.
At LAT, "California’s electric car revolution, designed to save the planet, also unleashes a toll on it":
SAN DIEGO — The precious cargo on the ship docked in San Diego Bay was strikingly small for a vessel built to drag oil rigs out to sea. Machines tethered to this hulking ship had plucked rocks the size of a child’s fist from the ocean floor thousands of miles into the Pacific. The mission was delicate and controversial — with broad implications for the planet. Investors are betting tens of millions of dollars that these black nodules packed with metals used in electric car batteries are the ticket for the United States to recapture supremacy over the green economy — and to keep up with a global transportation revolution started by California. Alongside his docked ship, Gerard Barron, chief executive of the Metals Co., held in his hand one of the nodules he argues can help save the planet. “We have to be bold and we have to be prepared to look at new frontiers,” he said. “Climate change isn’t something that’s waiting around for us to figure it out.” The urgency with which his company and a few others are moving to start scraping the seabed for these materials alarms oceanographers and advocates, who warn they are literally in uncharted waters. Much is unknown about life on the deep sea floor, and vacuuming swaths of it clean threatens to have unintended and far-reaching consequences. The drama playing out in the deep sea is just one act in a fast unfolding, ethically challenging and economically complex debate that stretches around the world, from the cobalt mines of Congo to the corridors of the Biden White House to fragile desert habitats throughout the West where vast deposits of lithium lay beneath the ground. The state of California is inexorably intertwined in this drama. Not just because extraction companies are aggressively surveying the state’s landscapes for opportunities to mine and process the materials. But because California is leading the drive toward electric cars. No state has exported more policy innovations — including on climate, equality, the economy — than California, a trend accelerating under the Biden administration. The state relishes its role as the nation’s think tank, though the course it charts for the country has, at times, veered in unanticipated directions. “The ocean is the place on the planet where we know least about what species exist and how they function,” Douglas McCauley, a marine science professor at UC Santa Barbara, said of plans to scrape the seafloor. “This is like opening a Pandora’s box.... We’re concerned this won’t do much good for climate change, but it will do irreversible harm to the ocean.” The sprint to supply automakers with heavy-duty lithium batteries is propelled by climate-conscious countries like the United States that aspire to abandon gas-powered cars and SUVs. They are racing to secure the materials needed to go electric, and the Biden administration is under pressure to fast-track mammoth extraction projects that threaten to unleash their own environmental fallout. In far-flung patches of the ocean floor, at Native American ancestral sites, and on some of the most pristine federal lands, extraction and mining companies are branding themselves stewards of sustainability, warning the planet will suffer if digging and scraping are delayed. All the prospecting is giving pause to some of the environmental groups championing climate action, as they assess whether the sacrifice needed to curb warming is being shared fairly...
It's actually called the S.F. Bar Owner Alliance, 250-member strong.
At KPIX CBS News 5 San Francisco, "Group of San Francisco Bars to Require COVID Vaccine or Negative Test from Customers."
