COTW: Labor Took It Hard from Dear Leader

Nothing works harder than a good excuse in the Swamp. The meme circulating at the Federal Reserve to explain the substantial drop in civilian labor force participation [chart above] is that, 'baby boomers are getting older and retiring' This chart shows that simply is not true:

Participation by 65 and older workers is climbing, not dropping, as the excuse would have you believe.  So what accounts for the overall drop shown in the first chart?  The answer may lie here:

Fewer younger workers are in the work force, perhaps signaling a malaise--a disgust with being trickled on by the 1%--which also explains why they have time to demonstrate in the streets for equal justice under law. Or rather, that late capitalism treats labor as expendable, at best as replaceable? This condition is epitomized by a record breaking stock market midst an economically depressive pandemic.  Georgians: flip the Senate because your nation, and your families depend on it.

 

Galaxy level karma arrives....

US COVID-19 DEATHS (est.): 356,580

Terrestrial Giants Return Home

Two stories of unique, large land mammals returning to their home ranges, continents apart, provide hope for the restoration of wildlife the world over. On the Great Plains of North America, the Ogallla Lakota Nation welcomed its first buffalo herd to the Rosebud Reservation after more than a century this October. The tribe's economic council plans to expand the herd to 1500 members, which would make it the largest native-owned bison herd in North America. The Walokota Buffalo Range project began with the lease of 28,000 acres of former cattle pasture with the support of the World Wildlife Fund and the US National Park Service.

To Lakota and other native plains people, the buffalo is sacred and a cultural keystone. It was official government policy to exterminate the buffalo as a means of controlling the largely nomadic populations to make room for Euro-American economic development. An estimated 30 million bison once made the plains, "black with innumerable herds" according to an army officer. In the span of a century the largest land mammal on the continent was reduced to just 1000 by 1889, surviving mostly in zoos and private ranches. The native cultures that were intertwined with the animal were also largely destroyed. [photo credit: WWF]

Once, native Americans on the plains were among the tallest people on the continent, a fact scientists attribute to the presence of buffalo. Anthropological data collected in the late 19th and early 20th century show Sioux and Crow men were a half inch to an inch taller than Euro-Americans on average. This remarkable stature was achieved through a rich and varied diet, modest disease loads, and egalitarian social structures. “It seems clear that the Plains tribes, particularly those in the mid to northern latitudes, had adequate protein and energy from buffalo, and that this diet typically reached the poor,” the research team wrote. Trade with tribes from other regions likely provided the Sioux with the nutrients necessary for their chart-topping height, in addition to the wild berries, onions, turnips and other produce they gathered from the plains. After the bison were wiped out by whites, this success story tragically and abruptly ended. Plains nations were forced to end their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, accept poor quality government rations, and adopt often unsuitable crop agriculture.

Modern native societies have not thrived, and are dismissed by dominate white society as concentrations of poverty, drug addiction and unemployment. In fact, a 20th century Secretary of the Interior, charged with stewardship of native peoples said first nations were an object lesson in the failure of socialism, a remark that is mind-boggling in its inaccuracy, bigotry, and arrogance. Projects like the Walokota Buffalo Range are intended to allow native plains peoples to re-connect with their lost culture and former prosperity. The tribal members will decide what they want to do with their new buffalo herd on the land, a self-determination of a hopeful future that has been missing for decades. Other reservations have reintroduced buffalo herds, such as nearby Fort Peck and Pine Ridge. 

The buffalo at Rosebud were provided by the US Park Service, a part of the same Interior Department that allowed the speicies' near extermination in the 19th Century. Its Bison Conservation Initiative aims to build up “large, wild, connected, genetically diverse and healthy bison herds.” Perhaps in the not too distant future, buffalo herds will once again darken the Great Plains with their numbers, bringing peace and prosperity to their kin once again.

In central Africa lies the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park. What was once an Eden packed with wildlife has been the scene of a destructive civil war, unrest and poaching for decades. Just in 2018 the park was forced to close for eight months due to attacks from militia forces. Now it is closed due to a pandemic in an effort to protect its iconic mountain gorillas from disease. The park's tourist revenue is down 40%, which heavily impacts the local economy. Fighting has taken a toll on the parks wildlife too. [photo credit: Virunga National Park]

Park authorities are making concerted efforts to protect habitats and their residents in partnership with international conservation organizations. The work is paying dividends: elephants are returning to the park in large numbers from Queen Elizabeth National Park in neighboring Uganda. 580 savannah elephants appear to be reoccupying Virunga, joining the 120 elephants that never left. They are quickly transforming the landscape, returning it to the savannah it once was, which is good news for the other ungulates that share the 2 million acre park. In the 1950s there were about 8,000 elephants in Virunga, but the Great Elephant Census in 2014 found only 300. If the elephants can be protected from increased poaching and human conflict, they may regain their former numbers and Eden will have returned to Virunga.

'Toontime: The Tangerine Grinch

credit: A. Zyglus

More: This evening, the House of Representatives passed a measure by two-thirds majority with forty-four Repugnants in favor of $2000 stimulus checks as demanded by the Don. The bill goes to the Senate where 'Moscow Mitch' McConnell risks his majority to defeat it.  In a classic parliamentary gambit, champion progressive Senator Bernie Sanders said Monday night he will filibuster the veto override of the defense bill in the Senate unless the stimulus check bill is brought to a vote. He can delay the override, making it inconvenient for the GOP by keeping its Georgia senators running for reelection in Washington, DC.  The voice of capital, the Wall Street Journal editors warned Repugnant senators that they will loose control of the chamber if they pass the increased direct payments bill.  The ideological divide in 'Merica cannot get much more conspicuous than the current standoff over social welfare thanks to Don's superlative deal-making skills.  [NOT!]

Update: After a weekend of golf and internet tantrums, Trumpillini signed the COVID-19 relief bill (after repeatedly changing his mind) extending unemployment benefits and issuing $600 direct stimulus payments, calling the bill a disgrace. Senate Repugnants are blocking the Democratic effort today to pass a separate bill granting $2,000 stimulus payments to 'Mericans, which Killer said he wanted in the bill after protracted relief negotiations in which he did not take part. He was preoccupied broadcasting his fake election fraud claims, and raising free money ($207.5 million) from gullible fans. A $2000 stimulus vote is a 'bigly' loose/loose for Repugnants--they risk alienating their bat-shit conservative base, or the rest of US who want additional aid, as the Georgia senate race hangs in the balance. The delay in passage of the relief bill will cause unemployment recipients to miss a weekly benefit check since the current programs ran out on Saturday. No dominatrix boots for you, and remember that when you go to the polls!

{28.12.20} Trumpillini's eleventh-hour fake populism will blowup in his supporters' face. Ms. Pelosi quickly called him on his $2,000 bluff, knowing that elitist Repugnants will not swallow that poison pill. Congressional Repugnants rejected raising relief payments by unanimous consent motion, so the Speaker will hold a recorded vote on Monday, putting the issue squarely in the lap of the Senate. "Loyalty and assistance to President Trump generally gets rewarded with humiliation. This is how it ends for a lot of people who work for the guy", said a right wing pundit. Killer does not care who wins the Georgia Senate runoff because the game is all about him and his grievances, all the time*. One ex-aide called his move, "The most selfish thing I have ever seen." Stayed tune, Killer always surprises.

*His latest complaint: Third wife Melania did not get enough magazine photo covers during his misrule. COVID-19 deaths in the US: 342,000.  Because the pandemic emergency aid was passed with veto proof majorities in Congress, he may simply refuse to sign the legislation making it law for ten days--a pocket veto--until the current congressional session ends January 3rd, forcing the legislators to start from the beginning. Meanwhile, unemployment benefits end, the eviction moratorium ends, and government funding runs out, forcing a shutdown in Washington during a national emergency. Just so you know, Melania walked to her government provided helicopter ride out of town for Christmas in S&M inspired thigh-length boots costing $2,000! Let them eat their boots!

A man-child in psychological crisis....

Songbirds Die of Starvation

Another sign of ecological collapse: scientists who have investigated the mass die-off of songbirds in the southwest {19.09.2020} have concluded that the migratory birds died of long term starvation. Necropsies showed 80% of the carcasses recovered showed typical signs of starvation such as kidney failure, blood in the intestines and shrunken flight muscles. Cold weather contributed to the mass mortality. Birds were reported dropping out of the sky in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska during this migration season. Citizens encouraged to report dead migratory birds, reported 10,000 deaths; estimates are that hundreds of thousands of birds died. [photo credit: U. New Mexico]

The first reports came from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in September. Birds were seen in a disoriented state, flying into cars and buildings. Unable to fly away, many were eaten by predators. This mass starvation is definitely a long term phenomenon aince major flight muscles wasted away. Tests were conducted for toxins such as pesticides and wildfire smoke, and bacterial or viral infections. None were detected. Some scientists were reluctant to attribute the emaciation to changes in climate brought about by fossil fuel burning, but extreme weather events are more prevalent in a climate altered world. Most of the birds that perished were seed and berry eaters, that migrate from the tundra regions of the far north to Central and Southern America. They need to stop for refueling several times during their grueling migrations even in the best of times. The tragic Sixth Extinction carries on.

 Happy Holidays from PNG

Ferrets Get COVID Vaccine

Blackfooted ferrets (Mustela nigripes), are losing their homes to human development on the Great Plains. The highly endangered member of the weasel family (Mustelidae) were innoculated by scientists for another disease--COVID-19--this summer. The reason for the special treatment is that the Department of Agriculture is seeking a veterinary vaccine for minks, which are raised commercially for their fur. Europe has had to cull millions of minks after humans transmitted the disease to them. Danish health officials found 200 cases of human infections that could be genetically traced to farm raised minks. Thousands of minks have died on Utah farms. The US produces about three million mink pelts a year. 

Ferrets were saved from the brink of extinction decades ago, but have faced an uphill battle since then. Their gene pool is small making them vulnerable to disease, and their favorite prey animal, the prairie dog, is facing extermination from grazing, agriculture and human settlement. The trial vaccination of 120 ferrets living in the Ferret Conservation Center near Ft. Collins, CO was not totally altruistic. The possibility of zoonotic transmission exists, but is highly unlikely given that humans do not handle blackfooted ferrets in the wild as they do farmed animals. It is however, closely related to the mink. 

The ferret was declared extinct in the wild in 1979. An isolated population was found still living on a ranch Wyoming. Most of the colony had died of sylvatic plague, a form of the Black Death which wiped out human populations in the past. Scientists rescued eighteen of the animals to start a captive breeding program, the usual last resort for saving a species going extinct. A vaccine for the plague in ferrets was developed using a purified protein from the Yersinia pestis bacterium. 

Researchers began to develop a COVID-19 vaccine using the same technique, in this case a purified spike protein from the SARS CoV-2 virus. The first doses were given to eighteen, young male ferrets who were observed for an immune response. Within weeks of a second shot, animals showed increased levels of antibodies in their blood--a positive sign. By early fall, 120 of 180 resident ferrets were inoculated. So far the vaccine appears to be safe, but efficacy has not yet been proven. That will take a well designed blind study to decide the issue. The approach used--an inactivated protein from the pathogen to stimulate an immune response--is a successful one that has led to vaccines for polio and influenza. Thank you, ferrets.

COTW: Ending the Year With A Bang

What do you expect for a year like 2020, which will go down in the annals as the worst year in US history alongside 1862, 1929 and 1941? The charts tell the tale:

The virus will not begin to recede until late spring. Even with mass inoculations, depending on the level of participation, SARS-CoV-2 will not be effectively controlled for a year or more. The organism is already mutating to prolong its survival through greater transmissibility. If its genetic crap shoot hits a natural, the vaccines recently developed at record pace may become less effective. The various strains of resistant flu demonstrate this unthinkable possibility. Daily death rate in January will exceed 3,000, a truly tragic number. Excess deaths are generally viewed as the most accurate way to assess the impact of an infectious disease on a population. Mortality in 2020 is expected to top 3.2 million, mostly due to the pandemic. That represents a 15% increase over last year. According to AP, this would mark the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a flu pandemic. Deaths rose 46% that year, compared with 1917.

Meanwhile®, the sociopathic squatter with blood on his hands can think of nothing but his infomercial myth and the cash flow this insurrectional fantasy has created. He will desperately need the money to buy more unethical lawyers and pay off his Deutsche Bank loans once he leaves the immunity of the federal compound. Or will he chain himself to the "Resolute" desk in a version of WWF's "Smack Down", intended for the reality entertainment of his rabid fans? He wants you to stay tuned!

 

Chickens are roosting....on the 'stable genius'