Links 10/21/2020 – Church Security

Antitrust as Economic Stimulus Pro-Market. The editor truncated the original headline: antitrust-as-economic-stimulus-competition-help-workers.

California may replace cash bail with algorithms — but some worry that will be less fair NBC (Re Silc).

PG&E Prioritized Targets Over Reducing Fire Risk, Monitor Says Bloomberg

Why Does the U.S. Have Three Electrical Grids? IEEE Spectrum

#COVID19

Studies Point To Big Drop In COVID-19 Death Rates NPR

Debunking the False Claim That COVID Death Counts Are Inflated Scientific American

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Another cheap, off-patent, Third World drug gets The Treatment?

Latin America’s embrace of an unproven COVID treatment is hindering drug trials Nature

Use of Ivermectin is Associated with Lower Mortality in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 (ICON study) (pre-proof) Chest. From Background: “Ivermectin was shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in-vitro, which has led to off-label use, but clinical efficacy has not been previously described…. Ivermectin treatment was associated with lower mortality during treatment of COVID-19, especially in patients with severe pulmonary involvement. Randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm these findings.”

Real-world effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and ivermectin among hospitalized COVID-19 patients: results of a target trial emulation using observational data from a nationwide healthcare system in Peru (preprint) medRxiv. From the abstract: “Peru is one of the most impacted countries due to COVID-19. Given the authorized use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin (AZIT), and ivermectin (IVM), we aimed to evaluate their effectiveness alone or combined to reduce mortality among COVID-19 hospitalized patients without life-threatening illness…. Conclusions: Our study reported no beneficial effects of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, azithromycin. The HCQ+AZIT treatment seems to increase risk for all-cause death.”

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Schools haven’t become COVID hotspots Axios

These Doctors Have Long-Term Covid. Now They’re Pushing for Better Care. WSJ

The Truth About Blood Types and the Coronavirus Elemental. From July. Based on this paper, to which we linked at the time. Readers, thoughts?

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Who Decides When Vaccine Studies Are Done? Internal Documents Show Fauci Plays a Key Role. ProPublica

The FDA’s Evolving COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorizations: How The Convalescent Plasma Authorization Can Inform Future Vaccine And Therapeutic EUAs Health Affairs

Inner Workings: Researchers race to develop in-home testing for COVID-19, a potential game changer PNAS

Bill Belichick Locks Covid-Exposed Players In Room With Broken Glass Bottle, Single Dose Of Antibody Cocktail The Onion

Trump and Reagan’s Willful Incompetence During Epidemics The Body

Pandemic worsens NYC’s food crisis FOX5

Though they’re frequent targets of theft and vandalism, the gospel of community fridges spreads faster than ill will The Counter

China?

China’s Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy steals a march on US FT

Chinese drugmaker setting up COVID-19 vaccine production lines Channel News Asia

Xi Jinping Demands More Focus on the ‘War to Resist American Aggression’ The Diplomat. One solution:

A viewing of “Hamilton” would give Xi a better sense of how democratic values are rooted in the country’s history & wake him to the need to find a way to accommodate American opinions. If not, there’s little hope of the US & China restoring peaceful relations. 6/6

— Michael Schuman (@MichaelSchuman) October 18, 2020

China’s nightmare scenario of an ‘eastern Nato’ starts to take shape. Donald Trump isn’t the only reason South China Morning Post

‘Five Eyes’ Spy Alliance Trains Focus on Xi in Echo of Cold War Bloomberg

China set to keep up 5% growth through 2035, Xi adviser says Nikkei Asian Review

Is China’s Rising GDP Good For Luxury? Jing Daily

HKFP Lens: Hundreds swarm History Museum to capture ‘Hong Kong Story’ before controversial revamp Hong Kong Free Press

Exclusive: Indonesia rejected U.S. request to host spy planes – officials Reuters

Syraqistan

Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee and pro-democracy group he founded sue Saudi crown prince in his slaying WaPo

Leftists Are Dunking on the CIA After a Socialist Victory in Bolivia Vice

Exclusive: Bolivia’s President-elect Arce says ‘no role’ for Morales in new government Reuters

Venezuela: Oil Production Shows Modest Uptick as Gov’t Seeks Foreign Investment Venezuelanalysis

New Cold War

What role is Russia playing in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? Al Jazeera

What Would Achieving a Real Reset in U.S.-Russia Relations Take? The National Interest

Russiagate

The Damage Russiagate Has Done Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News (Carolinian).

Trump Transition

U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks NYT. Perhaps a great many of our national security goons do have brain damage; that would explain a lot. Anyhow, *** crickets *** ….

The 8th Wonder of The World The Verge. Trump and Walker’s Foxconn debacle.

2020

How Trump plowed through $1 billion, losing cash advantage AP

Hospitalized Brad Parscale ‘is under investigation for stealing up to $40million from Trump’s campaign and $10million from the RNC’, as he spirals out of control over White House ‘gravy train’ ending and mounting debt Daily Mail. Oopsie.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Streams On Twitch With Hasan Piker And Pokimane, Draws Over 430,000 Viewers Kotaku (deschain). AOC really is very good.

Get Ready For President Biden To Throw U.S. Security Policies Into Reverse Forbes

Realignment and Legitimacy

Psychoanalysis in combatting mass non-adherence to medical advice The Lancet. “Commentators on non-adherence call for better communication. Since communication around unconscious defences is what psychoanalysts do, it makes sense to add them to the care team.” As I urged, the PMC will double down on already-failed exhortation. Meanwhile, across the aisle–

The Eternal Insight Of John C. Calhoun The American Conservative vs. The Eternal Iniquity of John C. Calhoun National Review. Calhoun invented the thesis that slavery was a “positive good,” as opposed to the views of namby-pamby slaveowners who considered it a necessary evil.

Texas social workers can now turn away LGBTQ, disabled clients NBC

Health Care

Lawmakers ask Justice Department to consider criminal charges against Purdue and the Sacklers STAT

Why Foreign Debt Forgiveness Would Cost Americans Very Little Michael Pettis, China Financial Markets

Our Famously Free Press

We’ve had our differences with the Sacramento Bee, but this (via Resilc) is unconscionable:

We have alarming news.

The owner of The Sacramento Bee is trying to tie journalists’ pay to the number of clicks their stories get.

We’re urging the company to reconsider. Here’s our letter to McClatchy’s new CEO about how this could hurt our community.#NoPayForClicks 1/9 pic.twitter.com/1B0lOcJkQ8

— Sacramento Bee News Guild 🐝 (@SacBeeGuild) October 19, 2020

One more reason not simply to break up the platforms, but to abolish them. (Deeply ironic that McClatchy, which as Knight-Ridder alone among “newsgathering organizations” got Iraq right, is being dismembered and devoured, while pom-pom waving house organs like the New York Times and the Washington Post go from strength to strength. No good deed goes unpunished!

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Judge rules Breonna Taylor grand jurors may speak about case The Hill

Boeing

Boeing Max Judged Safe to Fly by Europe’s Aviation Regulator Bloomberg

Imperial Collapse Watch

Yes, Hunter Biden is corrupt. It’s one of the perks of having a daddy who helps run a global empire. Deal with it. Yasha Levine, Immigrants as a Weapon

Estimate of new nuclear missiles to replace Minuteman 3 arsenal increases to $95.8B Military Times

DoD seeks legislative help for ICBM replacement construction costs Defense One. From September, still germane.

Class Warfare