Sunday, August 29, 2021

Headlines -- August 29, 2021

 It's nearing midnight on the east coast. I'm not sure I really want to blog any more tonight but so much is going on, if I don't archive the headlines tonight, I will never catch up tomorrow.

For the most part, these headlines are from the online edition of The WSJ for the archives.

EVs: GM's Chevy Bolt recall casts shadow over EV push. Yes, like how long have "we" working on battery technology? Two hundred years?  

Covid-19 surge in Malaysia: threatens to prolong global chip shortage. Bad news for auto manufacturers and car buyers. Really, really bad news. 

Covid-19: EU ready to halt nonessential travel from the US.

Covid-19: twenty years from now, it will be interesting if we learn that the vaccine was the worst possible thing we could have done -- natural immunity is 29x more effective than the vaccine; vaccinated folks seem to be super-spreaders; and, it's starting to look like the vaccine, even less effective than the seasonal flu vaccine will now require booster shots, maybe as often as every six months, when perhaps we should not be vaccinating at all, if one watches the science. We are well beyond science, however, when it comes to Covid-19. It's not even educated vs non-educated, it's all politics now, it seems. 

Sturgis rally: South Dakota state statistics, link here. Massachusetts here.

North Korea: restarts Yongbyon nuclear reactor?  Or as we say down here in Texas, the "yon-begone" nuclear reactor.

Hellfire: US used a special Hellfire missile in Afghanistan airstrike on Islamic State. A secret weapon until recently, the missile employs blades instead of explosives, to limit damage. 

Afghanistan: back to civil war between the Taliban and ISIS. 

Ed Asner, dead at 91.

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Animated Over Sushi

Dinner for three: $67 before tip. Had we not bought "drinks," the bill before the tip would have been about $50, not bad for three folks. In addition to her sushi, Sophia enjoyed miso soup and edamame. 

We wore masks into the restaurant but removed them, of course, when our entrees came.

Focus On Fracking -- Later This Evening -- August 29, 2021

Reminder (because no one else will remind you, LOL): the weekly edition of "Focus On Fracking" will be released later this evening. 

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Sophia and Cousin Caleb
Flathead Lake, Montana

Late July, 2021, Corky had to stay home. She doesn't do well in the water:

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The Literature Page

Wow, wow, wow, this is really interesting.

I've been calling 2020, "the plague year." 

Others are calling it "The Great Pause."

Look at this, posted on March 23, 2020. I don't know anything about John Scalzi but talk about prescient. Back in March, 2020, we had barely entered the year of the plague, the lock down had just begun, but John Scalzi was not only writing about it, but he was calling it "The Great Pause."

That reminded me of a book I started reading a year ago or so, but quit for some reason, but recently started reading it again. It concerns a poet-author Letitia Elizabeth Landon who went by her initials, L.E.L.

From L.E.L: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron, Lucasta Miller, c. 2019, page four:

L.E.L. was, however, the voice of a lost literary generation. 
Her career which spanned the 1820s and 1830s, coincided exactly with the "strange pause," as the historian G. M. Young called it, between the Romantics and the Victorians. 
Modern scholars are stil unsure exactly what happened during this troublesome transition phase between the deaths of Keats, Shelley, and Bryon (or as I refer to them, "keatsshellyandbryon") and the rise of Dickens. 
Referred to as "an embarrassment to the historian of English literature" and an "indeterminate borderland," it resists periodization, and has never been dignified with a name, However, it should probably be called the "post-Byronic" era, since the fallout from Byron's celebrity cult had such a profound impact on the writing of the day. Following his death in 1824, every hack wanted his -- or her -- own cult of personality. Yet the labile, often ironized voices writers created in response remain hard to interpret, their tone difficult for the modern reader to pin down. 
None is harder to read than that of the inscrutable L. E. L.

Literary eras:

  • Regency era:  generally, 1811 - 1820 (the formal Regency decade); others, 1795 - 1837, which would include the Romanticism Period.
  • Romanticism: 1749 - 1832, pretty much universally agreed, although "entire
    Romanticism period could be considered 1800 to 1850 (wiki).
    • Rosseau's essay: 1749
    • death of Goethe: 1832
  • Victorian era: 1830 - 1901, as defined by The Norton Anthology, English Literature 
    • Queen Victoria's reign: 1819 - 1901

Interestingly, there are those who feel there was a "literary gap" between the end of Romanticism and the beginning of the Victorian era, somewhere during the 1820s and 1830s.

The "strange pause" and L.E.L.

Covid-19 Update -- August 29, 2021

Link here.

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Oregon

Link here. One of the most vaccinated -- if not the most vaccinated -- state in the union. What could possibly be going on?


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Better Late Than Never

I just realized I forgot to check out this week in pictures

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Love Him Or Hate Him,
We Finally Have A President
Willing To Stand Up
To The White House Press Corps

I didn't see it but it's being reported that President Biden set the boundaries for Q&A following the presser on Hurricane Ida and FEMA's response. Apparently he was instructed not to take any questions but with an impromptu decision agreed to take questions on FEMA and Hurricane Ida. Apparently he clearly stated the boundaries.

The first question, began, "Mr Presdient, on Afghanistan ..." 

President Biden turned around and walked away. 

Why haven't past presidents done the same?

It's Transitory -- August 29, 2021


 Everything is transitory these days. 

Futures mean squat, as they say, but right now, Sunday night at the height of disaster in the gulf, the arrival of caskets stateside, and, talk about tapering, all three major US equity markets are green. I guess it's the transitory cheap money still working its way through the transitory bull market.

Speaking of transitory, from social media re: Tesla. Link here

Photo Op -- August 29, 2021



What's with the masks?Aren't they all vaccinated? Speaking of vaccinations, state health departments are ordering a huge amount of vaccine for the upcoming week. Below, the number of doses of vaccines ordered on each Sunday since earlier this summer. This is the most I've seen on any Sunday in a long, long, time; may be an all-time record.



Doses of vaccine distributed to health facilities

Change from day before

Vaccinations given

Change from day before

Percent of distributed vaccine that is actually administered

Sunday

August 29, 2021

440,028,085

599,850

368,863,734

951,864

83.83%

Sunday

August 22, 2021

428,531,345

25,280

362,657,771

973,207

84.63%

Sunday

August 15, 2021

415,957,645

42,080

356,433,665

664,840

85.69%

Sunday

August 8, 2021

407,561,705

11,530

351,400,930

773,742

86.22%

Sunday

August 1, 2021

400,674,525

-1,000

346,456,669

816,203

86.47%

Sunday

July 25, 2021

394,948,975

12,160

341,818,968

778,996

86.55%

Sunday

July 18, 2021

390,100,605

-100

337,740,358

500,910

86.58%

Sunday

July 11, 2021

387,006,120

474,025

334,151,648

592,620

86.34%

Sunday

July 4, 2021

383,068,740

1,180

330,604,253

633,702

86.30%

Sunday

June 20, 2021

379,003,410

0

317,847,119

729,322

83.86%

How Bad Was It For The Bakken? The Plague Year -- 2020 -- No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List This Next Week -- August 29, 2021

At least, this is what the NDIC is reporting at "list of confidential wells." Six months ago: March, 2021.  NDIC has been updated database software July, 2021, and there may be other explanations. We will simply have to watch and wait for the daily activity reports. But if this is accurate, it is amazing that producers were able to maintain total production to the extent they did.

Monday, September 6, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Sunday, September 5, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Saturday, September 4, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Friday, September 3, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Thursday, September 2, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Wednesday, September 1, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Tuesday, August 31, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Monday, August 30, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Sunday, August 29, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.

Saturday, August 28, 2021: 16 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 207 for the year:
None.