I'll start with what you by now already knew.  The  debt ceiling crisis is over , President Joe Biden will at 7PM EDT give a speech and sign the legislation.  The U.S. economy is now even better than thought, and Republicans will have problems on 5 November 2024. What makes it especially difficult for the Grand Old Party is Donald Trump.  Democrats are doing everything possible to keep him out jail before the middle of next summer, but sum of all his criminal acts is making this difficult: Trump is the only president who has been shown to be guilty of a crime.  Lost $5 million to E. Jean Carroll, and is being re-sued for a lot more. His defense of those Mar-a-Lago classified documents is weakening as investigators uncover more evidence.  But when will he be formally charged? Georgia's Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is anticipating multiple indictments by the special grand jury in September.  Court?  Has to do with trying to overturn...

    From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):            DAY    USA    WORLD      Brazil      India      South Africa June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82 July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21      1225      6849         571     ...

Before I go into my Wednesday science topic, one note about COVID-19.  Of course, with so many tests now taken at home and not reported, surely the 100,000 or so new cases/day in the U.S. must be higher.   Here is one estimate by the University Columbia's Jeffrey Shaman : Shaman's research group turned to using models to estimate the "ascertainment rate" — the portion of real infections that were being captured in official case counts. That rate has fluctuated — at the end of 2020, they estimated one in four cases were being counted. During the omicron surge it was closer to one in six.   Now with the widespread availability of at-home rapid tests that aren't reported to health departments, Shaman thinks the true number of cases may be in the ballpark of eight times higher than case counts. In other words, instead of 100,000 new cases a day, the true number may be 800,000 cases per day. As terrible as that may sound, I think there is a silver lining.   So m...

  Here is a portion of an email I sent to a friend this morning: I've been trying to find out for almost two years now what the asymptomatic rate for COVID-19 is.  These are the individuals who are going around innocently infecting people.  The CDC and Fauci seem to think 40-45%.  I have read reports ranging from 20% to 90%.  I think this figure is closer to 90% than 45%.  When China shut down Shanghai these past two weeks they tested everyone.   Here is an article indicating that the asymptomatic rate is 97% !!! Shanghai counted more than 20,000 new cases on April 7, but the asymptomatic rate has stood at around 97%, far higher than anywhere else in the world, where it has been closer to 50%. The resultant sense is that this 97% rate is so high because those suffering from only mild COVID symptoms were placed into that category.  This Omicron BA.2 subvariant is relatively benign compared to Delta and other wave-producers.  But what, then, wh...

              From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185       246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571   ...