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Ever since the COVID mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer) proved themselves, I became convinced they are the future of viral vaccines. Looks like a polyvalent flu vaccine is in the works that may obviate annual strain-specific vaccines. "In this work, we developed a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (mRNA)–lipid nanoparticle vaccine encoding hemagglutinin antigens from all 20 known influenza A virus subtypes and influenza B virus lineages. This multivalent vaccine elicited high levels of cross-reactive and subtype-specific antibodies in mice and ferrets that reacted to all 20 encoded antigens. Vaccination protected mice and ferrets challenged with matched and mismatched viral strains, and this protection was at least partially dependent on antibodies. Our studies indicate that mRNA vaccines can provide protection against antigenically variable viruses by simultaneously inducing antibodies against multiple antigens." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0271?adobe_mc=M...

Anyone who thinks Wall Street is liberal needs to have their meds adjusted. Fool, money, etc: "GloriFi’s app made its debut in September. The company said customers could open checking and savings accounts and apply for credit cards. The app was aimed at people who saw Wall Street as too liberal and wanted a bank that shared their values." There will be another grift in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-woke-bank-glorifi-to-shut-down-11669051554?mod=djemalertNEWS&fbclid=IwAR2W7cZlm9s5Kq-XNtEdRMIcRCljoCP7uIOZJw_V6zpMIhl1bZE9ktKPTFE

Just a little reminder: the bible doesn't tell us *how* the world was made, it tells us "why" the world was made. Science tells us how, it doesn't tell us why.  

The endless hearings next year into Hunter Biden's laptop, Tony Fauci's COVID recommendations and Joe Biden's impeachment are not designed to uncover any new truths or disclose malfeasance or crime. They are designed to discredit the hearing and impeachment processes and delegitimize foundational democratic government practices. They are an extension of the GOP assault on democratic elections and meant to sow chaos, not to unite America. Don't fall for it and don't walk away. Fight it and fight for American democracy against these assaults.  

Look, Jesus was silent about abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage, but he spoke out against divorce. Trump was twice divorced when he emerged as the GOP nominee in 2016. Then there was the Access Hollywood tape, where he bragged about sexually molesting women. And the endless lying. And separating children from their parents and putting them in cages. Anyone claiming to be an evangelical Christian, let along a church leader, would have rejected Trump by then, if not before. Those who didn't were phonies and hypocrites. "Evangelical figures who previously supported Donald Trump are backing off now that he’s announced his third bid for the presidency." They're backing off now because Trump no longer fits their business model. Trump used them and they used him. They are the money changers Jesus drove from the temple. Shame. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-evangelicals-2024_n_637732cbe4b08013a8b525cf?fbclid=IwAR32UxH4-cXbSg9ZJWQ8oWv7rD5CHXIcV1NK_2u7Ci21pZl...

It's tempting to let your guard down, now that vaccination has reduced the prevalence of COVID, but don't. Just don't. Getting it once is a bad idea, even if it doesn't kill you. And getting it again is worse. "“During the past few months, there’s been an air of invincibility among people who have had COVID-19 or their vaccinations and boosters, and especially among people who have had an infection and also received vaccines; some people started referring to these individuals as having a sort of superimmunity to the virus,” said senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at the School of Medicine. “Without ambiguity, our research showed that getting an infection a second, third or fourth time contributes to additional health risks in the acute phase, meaning the first 30 days after infection, and in the months beyond, meaning the long COVID phase.” Additionally, the study indicated that the risk seems to increase with each infection. “This means that...

One Republican commentator who was critical of Trump's announcement asserted that previously"when he spoke you never really saw a 70-something year old man." What I always saw was a 70-something year old man with fake hair and an orange spray-on complexion who served up incoherent word salads. If you didn't see that, you either need to adjust your set or schedule an ophthalmology consult.

  So it looks like Trump will announce today that he is running in the presidential election of 2024. Setting aside whether he'll actually be the GOP nominee, will the announcement will be: a) a sober assessment of where his (the GOP) party is and how he intends to win voters to the party in 2024 by advancing policies that will make America great again, or: b) a dog's breakfast of grievance mongering over 2020, finger pointing over the losses in 2022 and chest thumping about how only he can fix things. Discuss.

I see where cryptocurrency is once again in trouble. Since I've never been a gambler, I don't understand the attraction of Bitcoin (or as the economist Nuriel Roubini calls it, S**tcoin) since it fails the rudimentary requirement of money as a store of value. But I guess a fool and his money are soon parted, there's a sucker born every minute, etc. Heh. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/08/dem-megadonors-crypto-exchange-forced-to-sell-00065651

In my view, being patriotic means sometimes putting country before party. So patriotic Joel hopes that when the GOP takes control of the house, they re-think the endless hearings, impeachments, bills to cut Social Security and Medicare and default on the national debt that were discussed in the run-up to the latest election. But cynical Joel hopes they take the bait and do what they threaten, because by 2024, American voters will be sick and tired of the juvenile party and its endless tantrums and destruction of the economy and will sweep the GOP out of power. It sure looks like the GOP is bent on self-immolation and plans to take the rest of us with them. Per Josh Marshall over at TPM: "A Republican House would mean tons of investigations into various aspects of the Biden administration, holding the debt ceiling hostage and likely impeaching Biden and other Cabinet officials. The investigations will happen even if Republicans end up with a one-seat majority — all they need is com...

  I see where there are grumblings in the GOP that it's time to move on from Trump, who not only is a loser himself, but demonstrated an impressive eye for choosing losers in the most recent election. My guess is that this will come to nothing. Trump will announce in the next week that he's running in 2024, and the party will swiftly queue up behind him, because there cannot be trumpism without Trump. Trump needs to declare so he can ward off legal problems by claiming they are political attacks to prevent him from being president again. By declaring now, he also sucks all the oxygen out of any discussion of competition and can continue to manipulate the news cycle for the next two year. You see, it's not just Trump and the GOP that he's enslaved. It's also the press, that knows he puts food on its table. Sad.

“I want to be very clear: Under no circumstances will I support the proposals put forward by Senator Johnson and the senator [from] Florida to cut or make fundamental changes in Social Security and Medicare,” Biden declared. “That’s not on the table. I will not do that.”

As I've mentioned before, I regularly attended the home football games of my high school from about 6th through 12th grade. After that, I stopped watching football. I never watched college or pro football. What happened? In high school, these were *our* kids. They grew up here and we knew them and/or their families. College and pro athletes are mercenaries. At least now the college players can stop pretending: https://jabberwocking.com/the-free-market-says-a-college-quarterback-is-worth-8-million/

  Just read a great think piece on the role of theater in our lives (h/t Scott Miller ). The nut graf: "Once you realize that almost all storytelling -- well, all good storytelling -- offers us something emotional and/or intellectual that we need, it's pretty easy to recognize what those things are when you look at a story. It's really obvious, when you look closely, that people don't seek escape. They seek connection, reassurance, inclusion in the human story. They seek reflection." Read the rest here: https://newlinetheatre.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-dark-i-know-so-well.html?fbclid=IwAR3msMjZzigU0U8E4W5ot2GGkeMiXV5RI_BVeW_5DXxeY_u4E55CfaHEFPs

  Just finished “Africa, A Biography of a Continent” by John Reader. I don’t recall how this book came into my possession. It may have been on my mom’s bookshelf when we stopped by after they moved to take whatever we wanted. Whatever its provenance, I had only read a little African history: “King Leopold’s Ghost” and a book on the Boer War are the only ones I can recall. I also read Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” which is a thinly veiled account of Conrad’s own journey up the Congo River in the Belgian Congo Free state. I figured it was time for a deep dive into African history. This is truly a biography of a continent. It starts with geological history and the origin of the African continent as it split from Pangea. Reader explains the geological mechanisms that account for the mineral wealth of the Africa, as well as the ways that the geography that emerged accounts for the distribution of rainfall and the paths of rivers. He next steps through the emergence of plant and animal l...

 Several years ago, I got my genome sequenced at 30-50x coverage. The proximate incentive was that Veritas offered this service for $200, and for an additional $100, I got my variant call file, so I now know the variants for each of my genes, relative to the reference genome. Ultimately, I was motivated by my dad's diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia, and wanted to know whether I have any of the known risk variants for that condition (I don't). I've also checked my status for risk variants for hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and various cancers. Some folks don't want their genome sequenced because they believe there's nothing they can do about their genome. My feelings are mirrored in this quote: "As strange as this sounds, knowing I have a BRCA mutation actually makes me feel empowered and I am grateful. With my strong family history of cancer, I always assumed I would get cancer too. Now, I'm not just waiting for bad news: I know my risk and can deci...

From a paywalled article at TPM: "There is one looming possibility that is different from all of this. There’s a very good chance that a Republican House will drive the country into a debt default next year. They will likely set up a situation in which Joe Biden has to agree to repeal all the 2021 legislation and/or force big cuts to Social Security and Medicare or they push the country off the cliff. I sense there is zero appetite among Democrats nationwide or in the White House to even engage those discussions. I’m confident that Republicans will be willing to shoot the hostage. So I think a default will happen. The consequences of that will be cataclysmic, immediate and mostly unfixable. This isn’t something where people get furloughed for a few weeks. It’s the U.S. government declaring bankruptcy which will have all the impact you can imagine on its future ability to borrow money at low costs. And also, it’ll basically mean a global financial crisis." Vote, people, as if ...

Looks like Brazil threw out their fascist leader. Unfortunately, Israel is unwilling to do the same. "Many members of Religious Zionist Party coalition came out of the violent and racist Kahanist movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahanist organizations such as the Kach Party came to be outlawed as terrorists by both Israel and the United States, but former members of the younger generation such as Itamar Ben-Gvir have reinvented themselves through other extremist parties such as Otzmah Yehudit that have coalesced with the Religious Zionist Party. "A decade ago, such figures were too toxic for mainstream Israeli politicians to have anything to do with them. Now, the far right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, has formally allied with the Religious Zionist Party. "Ben-Gvir once pulled a gun on Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah. He was once convicted in Israel of incitement to racism for his anti-Palestinian threats. He advocates stripping Israeli citizenship from...

There was a time that the Republican Party stood for small government and against the nanny state. No more. "Bo Hines is a Madison Cawthorn-esque candidate who is the Republican nominee in North Carolina’s 13th congressional district. He’s Trump endorsed, with all you’d expect with that. But since getting the nomination he’s apparently been trying to come more towards the political center. Part of that has been trying to work out how the Oz proposal operates in practice. "According to WRAL in Raleigh, Hines “wants victims of rape and incest to be allowed to get an abortion on a case-by-case basis through a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.” "In other words, if you are a victim of rape and become pregnant, you would present your case to a community board to see if the situation was bad enough to merit your getting an abortion or whether your rape was legitimate enough (to paraphrase the immortal Todd Aiken) to merit an abor...