PowerLine: This Week In Pictures -- Covid-19-Update -- August 14, 2021

Covid-19 update: wow, the south is getting religion. This is awesome. Two days in a row, almost one million vaccinations given. Absolutely awesome. CDC data here. 

State data here:

• Louisiana: fourth wave has not yet peaked (active cases); daily deaths pattern better than that seen during third wave;
• Florida: third wave (no fourth wave) has not yet peaked (active cases); daily deaths have dropped considerably;
• Texas: third wave (no fourth wave) has not yet peaked (active cases; well below the second; worse than the first wave; daily deaths not yet tracking daily active cases but rising;
• South Dakota: with regard to the Sturgis Rally, a "nothing-burger";
• Massachusetts: the third wave is just beginning (active cases); deaths not yet tracking active cases;
  

National data vaccine rollout:

		Total Doses Administered	Number of People Receiving At Least One Dose	Fully Vaccinated	Delta: Difference in daily doses from previous day	Percent (B+C)/A	Percent Of Americans (>18) Considered Fully Vaccinated	Delta from day before
Saturday	August 14, 2021	355,768,825	197,685,048	168,090,925	990,875	102.81%	65.58%	0.15%
Friday	August 13, 2021	354,777,950	197,081,471	167,699,170	918,056	102.82%	65.43%	0.13%
Thursday	August 12, 2021	353,859,894	196,505,543	167,354,729	654,350	102.83%	65.29%	0.10%
Wednesday	August 11, 2021	353,205,544	196,077,952	167,105,507	654,600	102.82%	65.19%	0.10%
Tuesday	August 10, 2021	352,550,944	195,646,711	166,861,912	617,769	102.82%	65.10%	0.08%
Monday	August 9, 2021	351,933,175	195,222,906	166,654,374	532,245	102.83%	65.02%	0.07%

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Cartoons And Headlines

Link here.  

This may be the best set of "pictures" I've seen in this weekly installment over at PowerLine. I can't even go through all the pictures. I had to stop at #5 or #6 -- they are simply so good I don't want to simply scrolls through them. I want to go through them slowly, savoring them all.

Headlines that caught my attention today:

Does anyone else see the problem in the weather map above?

Breaking: US Is Doubling Troops Being Sent Back Into Afghanistan -- August 14, 2021

Original plan: 3,000 non-combat troops being sent back to Afghanistan to assist safe return of 600 US embassy staff.

Plan B: will now add another 2,000 non-combat troops to the original 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to assist safe return of 600 embassy staff. 

Yes, I know that's not "double" the original numbers but when one starts adding in the additional support troops, aircrews, planners, ships, etc .... well, you get the picture. 

I personally think they are "combat" troops but the SecDef specifically said yesterday, when asked, these were not combat troops. Actually, the wrong question was being asked. If one wants to know whether these are combat troops or not, simply ask if those going back in are getting "combat pay"? My hunch: they are.

Twenty years of whatever successes / non-successes the US has had in Afghanistan will now be decided in seventy-two hours. 

 Anyone who says there were "no successes" in Afghanistan over the past twenty years has no soul.

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Digression

Combat pay.

Combat pay is a monthly pay. If one spends one day -- again, one day in any one month in a combat zone -- the soldier, seaman, airman is paid a full month's combat pay.

When I was stationed in eastern Turkey two decades ago, a non-combat zone, if we were deployed for a day or two in any given month to Iraq on any kind of mission, we were paid combat pay for the month. 

I remember being eligible for combat pay for one month following a three-day humanitarian mission into northern Iraq. We flew into northern Iraq on US Army helicopters, overnight in a hardened facility, and then out by helicopter a couple of days later. 

USAF pilots stationed in Incirlik AB, Turkey -- again, a non-combat zone at the time -- would "make sure' they "scheduled" at least one sortie over Iraq every month, log it as a combat mission, and collect combat pay for that month. 

Combat pay is not taxable. 

Anyone airman, seaman, soldier, paying attention, would put that combat pay into a retirement program, the most favored, the Thrift Savings Program. 

That was two decades ago; I don't know if things have changed.

Update On The On-Going 2020 USGS Assessment Of The Bakken -- August 14, 2021

Link here. 

Or: https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/documents/newsletter/2021Summer/A_Look_Back_and_Forward_at_USGS_Bakken-Three_Forks_Assessments.pdf.

Both links download the same pdf. 

I'll go through the article later. A huge amount of definitions, data, and background provided. 

A huge "thank-you" to the reader who sent me the link.

This assessment and previous assessments are tracked at the sidebar at the right.