Covid on Two Wheels

This is the 80th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally. Each year up to 500,000 bikers show up for the 10-day event in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Like a desert flower blooming after a rainstorm, Sturgis goes from a small backwater to a full-blown party machine over those 10 days.  Town authorities struggle to find room to park ever more bikes, mainly Harleys. Bikers pack local bars, cheek on jowl. It's a Biker Bacchanal.

Generally speaking the bikers are hardcore Trump supporters and they don't want to hear any crap about masks or social distancing either. The very nature of the festivities makes that all but impossible.

This year it was thought the pandemic would pare down the numbers of visitors by half but even that would be a horde for tiny Sturgis. The locals, 60 per cent of them, wanted this year's rally canceled but what do they matter?

You may have read that Native Americans are getting hammered by Covid-19, a result in part attributable to the reservation system, a lack of testing, a lack of healthcare resources.  It's not surprising that the Sioux tribes of South Dakota want no part of the bikers riding through their reserves. They've set up roadblocks along highways crossing their reservations.

The decision to prevent access across tribal lands to the annual rally, which could attract as many as 250,000 bikers amid fears it could lead to a massive, regional coronavirus outbreak, comes as part of larger Covid-19 prevention policy. The policy has pitted seven tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation against federal and state authorities, which both claim the checkpoints are illegal.

A duty officer for the Cheyenne River Sioux told the Guardian on Saturday that only commercial and emergency vehicles will be let through the checkpoints onto reservation land. 

A number of bikers had tried to enter but had been turned back, they said. Other reservations in the region, including the Oglala Sioux, were also turning away bikers that had attempted routes to Sturgis that pass through sovereign land.

The clampdown comes as fears mount that mask-free bikers visiting Sturgis for the largest gathering of people since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic could spread the virus to tribal groups that are already experiencing a rise in cases.

The governor has said the state will sue the Sioux. What she won't do is the sue the rally organizers for the logical and foreseeable consequences of bringing hundreds of thousands of bikers into one tiny hole in the wall to party and drink and mingle for the 10 day inebriathon.

During the rally, people are expected to cram bars and pack concerts with at least 34 acts playing. “Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt on sale. “I went to Sturgis.”

On Friday, a worker at the event told the Guardian crowds seemed larger than in previous years and warned that Sturgis attendees were paying little heed to medical advice. 

“I’ve not seen one single person wearing a mask,” said bartender Jessica Christian, 29. “It’s just pretty much the mentality that, ‘If I get it, I get it.’” 

“In downtown Sturgis it’s just madness,” Christian added. “People not socially distancing, everybody touching each other. It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out.”

When the party ends next weekend the bikers will hop back on their machines and happily shed coronavirus as they wend their way home to just about every corner of the continental US.

A Word to the Wise

As the pandemic stretches into months then seasons, perhaps years, it becomes less the exclusive preserve of healthcare professionals and ever more the playground of other experts, especially those who cast is as an economic crisis.

In the business section of today's Globe there's an article about four leading economists who wrote a paper for Brookings contending that, in the event of a Covid-19 second wave, there is no justification - economic or epidemiological - for another round of lockdowns.

In the comments section, two readers drew upon this same quote from John Kenneth Galbraith:

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

Good one, JKG.

160,000 Dead. 190,000 by Labour Day. 300,000 by December?

The United States has now logged more than 160,000 dead from Covid 19. The CDC predicts that number will tally between 175,000 to 190,000 by month's end. If federal and state authorities cannot get American people to wear face masks in public, the death toll could hit 300,000 by December.

Another day, another grim milestone for the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic continues across the globe. Overnight the U.S. surpassed 160,000 deaths, bringing its total to at least 160,104 as of 4:30 a.m., according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. crossed 150,000 deaths last week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 death projections, saying the coronavirus death toll could reach 190,000 by the end of August. The government’s ensemble forecast predicts “deaths may decrease,” but another 15,000 to 30,000 more Americans may die from COVID-19 over the next 23 days.

A report released yesterday by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll could hit 300,000 by December.

The new forecast, released Thursday, projects that between now and December, 137,000 people will die on top of the roughly 160,000 who have died so far.

Other findings - Covid 19 could become the third leading cause of death in the US, behind cancer and heart disease. 

-  the hardest hit states, mainly in the American south, aren't expected to 'flatten the curve' due to public rejection of lockdowns, masks and other protective measures.

-  there is a "roller coaster" effect in play.

"The lesson that we're seeing in the experience in the big Southern states is that there is a behavioral response from individuals," says [IHME team leader Chris] Murray. "When things get bad in their community, individuals are more likely to wear a mask, more likely to be cautious. And that helps put the brakes on transmission." But the flip side of that is that once there is an improvement in daily death tolls, people tend to ease up too quickly. "That creates this potential for [cases] going up, stabilizing, then coming down, [then] people becoming less vigilant, and then cases going up again," says Murray. "I think we will see more of that roller coaster phenomenon through the fall."

-  when cold weather arrives in November, infections will take off again.

...when the weather is colder the virus appears to transmit more rapidly. This is a statistical analysis — so it doesn't explain the cause. For instance, it could be that when the weather turns cold, people spend more time indoors. Or it could be that the virus thrives in colder air. But whatever the reason, the impact is massive, according to Murray. For instance, in Northern states, says Murray, the analysis suggests "at the peak, which will be the first week of February, we would see approximately a 50% increase in transmission." And he says the effect will kick in starting in November.

-  projected death rates could be worse than projected if hard-hit states balk at lockdowns.

-  tens of thousands of projected deaths could be avoided if the public would accept wearing masks.

Murray estimates that currently about 50% of people in the U.S. are wearing masks when they are out and about. The team then ran a simulation to see what would happen if starting today, that share was increased to 95% of Americans wearing masks. They found that this would cut the number of deaths by Dec. 1 almost in half — saving 66,000 lives.

-  even with near universal masking, some 18 states will still need to lockdown.

-  there is always hope that new solutions, beyond lockdowns, mask and handwashing, that are not currently understood will emerge. It's the classic "oh, they'll think of something" sop we've become familiar with on climate change. But, hey, who knows?

The bottom line is that if states take the hard decisions and if the American people voluntarily comply (there really is no way to force compliance), the death toll by December 1 could be just 230,000 instead of 300,000.  Almost 70,000 needless deaths could be averted. It's not going to be easy and it's not going to be painless. Given public attitudes it might not even be doable.

Lockheed is Still Knocking on Ottawa's Door.

Lockheed has pretty much scraped the barrel for customers to buy its flawed and compromised stealth light bomber, the F-35, but the company still has Canada in its sights.

When any manufacturer starts working on a new product, the old designs at the end of the production line lose a bit of lustre. Asking prices slip. Customers expect more generous terms.  When it comes to the F-35, Lockheed delivers.

So eager is America's biggest military aircraft company to secure Canada's business that it's now guaranteeing to deliver $16.9 billion in industrial benefits to the Canadian economy. $17 billion on a $19 billion package, not bad. 

Still it's a lot of money for an airplane that's not really designed to meet Canada's needs. It doesn't have much internal space for goodies such as bombs and missiles. It doesn't have supercruise. If you give it a conventional load out with extra fuel tanks and ordinance slung under the wings and fuselage, it's not stealthy nor does it perform as showcased.

It may not even be stealthy anymore. The F-35s intended adversaries, Russia and China, have had two decades to get up to snuff on stealth technology. They have their own stealth aircraft. They've also had oodles of time to develop systems to pierce Lockheed's stealth cloaking.  Okay, well, that was bound to happen sooner or later.

When the order book closes on the F-35, we'll see what American designers have been working on in recent years - their sixth generation fighters and bombers.  New designs that will address the defects and shortfalls of the F-35. Suddenly nearly-new could look pretty shabby.  But I digress.

There was a time when $16.9 billion sounded like a huge amount of money. H-u-u-u-ge. Crazy big. Only not so much anymore. It's almost exactly the amount of money Canada will be out of pocket by the time the Justin Trudeau Memorial Pipeline, a.k.a. the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion is completed in 2022.

The upfront cost was $4.5 billion Canada overpaid to Kinder Morgan for the sclerotic old pipeline when KM was about to shut the whole thing down.  Then, in February, we learned that construction costs would be 70 per cent higher than the federal government estimated. The project would cost $12.6 billion, not the $7.4 billion the Trudeau government originally claimed. That's $12.6 billion atop the original $4.5 billion

Not to worry, said FinMin Bill Morneau.  Once the feds finished the project the private sector wouldn't touch, they would come to their senses. They would flock to Ottawa with lucrative competing bids to get their hands on the Trans Mountain pipeline. Then we would see who was really over the barrel.

A lot has happened since February. The price of oil has plummeted and isn't expected to return to levels that make bitumen profitable. The industrial money  - investors, major insurers, foreign energy companies - have quietly bailed out.  Not sure who is going to cover the cost of remediating Alberta's giant northern Love Canal but that, and the thousands of orphan wells to the south  carries an estimated cost of $230 billion.

Suddenly throwing $19 billion Lockheed's way for an outdated, deeply flawed, first-strike light bomber doesn't seem like such a horrendous amount of money. It's right in Ottawa's sweet zone - for boondoggles.

First It Was Total, Now Exxon. The Verdict Is In. Athabasca Bitumen Is a "Stranded Asset."

When word got out on Wednesday that energy giant Exxon was writing down 20 per cent of its fossil fuel assets - Athabasca bitumen and natural gas - the writing was on the wall. It was the culmination of a quiet retreat by the world's biggest institutional investors, global insurance giants and foreign energy companies from the Tar Sands. High carbon, low value bitumen was in trouble and it took the federal  and Alberta governments to throw billions of public dollars into bad investments to keep it from collapsing entirely.

From The Narwhal:

The news broke in the last, ostensibly lazy week of July, and it sent a shockwave through the oilpatch: French fossil fuel giant Total was designating $9.3 billion in Alberta crude investments as stranded assets. 

Citing high production costs and forecasting declining demand for oil, Total said it was writing off its $7.3-billion stake in the Fort Hills bitumen mine, a massive development capable of processing 14,500 tonnes of oil sand per hour. 

Total also dropped its 50 per cent share in the Surmont bitumen recovery project, a joint effort with ConocoPhillips Canada that was busy doubling its output as recently as 2016. 

For good measure, Total dropped its membership in the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

...The fallback assumption among Canada’s political class is that companies like Total, Deutsche Bank, and Zurich Insurance Group are just out to get Alberta, falling prey to the supposed foreign-funded radicals whose influence Premier Jason Kenney’s government is now apparently having trouble tracking down. 

“If you can picture the portfolio manager at the end of his long table in New York or London or Zurich or wherever, looking down at his juniors and saying ‘What are we doing about climate change? Well, we’re writing off investments in Canadian oil and gas,’ ” Natural Resource Minister Seamus O’Regan told The Globe and Mail last month. “And the box is checked.” 

But what if the rest of the world is reading the numbers while elected officials in Ottawa and Alberta cling desperately to their own spin? What if there’s no virtue signalling or hypocrisy in Total’s decision, just a hard-nosed business assessment? 

After all, Total is far from alone: in May, Fort Hills co-owners Suncor and Teck wrote down their own oilsands investments by $1.38 billion and $474 million, respectively, The Canadian Press reported. The facility was expected to operate for about half a century when it opened less than three years ago.

...“Total has reviewed its oil assets that can be qualified as ‘stranded’, meaning with reserves beyond 20 years and high production costs,” the release continued. “The only projects identified in this category are the Canadian oil sands projects Fort Hills and Surmont.” 

In other words: nothing political to see here, folks. Just listening to the evidence and following where it leads. 

But in Alberta, where everything fossil-related is hyper-political, that kind of analysis leaves both major parties in a serious bind. They’re caught between their own overheated support for an expanded oilsands industry and a global economic reality that is driving down the province’s fossil economy, triggering huge cuts in health and community services that depend on it, and now threatening to eviscerate rural municipalities’ tax base.

Since The Narwhal article went to print, Exxon has joined the Defector's Club. Exxon will be wiping 20 per cent of its fossil fuel reserves from the company's asset sheet. First to be written off, stranded, are Exxon's Athabasca bitumen holdings.

It's pretty obvious now that the reality of Tar Sands bitumen was foremost in Kinder Morgan's thinking when the Texas cowboys announced they were walking on the Trans Mountain pipeline. They must have thought they hit the jackpot when Bill Morneau flew down with the federal chequebook to grossly overpay them for what they knew was a pipeline to nowhere.

Will the Trudeau Liberals ignore these omens and keep pouring billions into the Trans Mountain expansion or will they realize that Canada has no end of better uses for that money?

Justin Trudeau has another scandal on his hands only this time it doesn't go to his integrity. This is a question of competence.

When We No Longer "Give a Sh_t"

Covid-19 statistics become a blur. Millions infected, hundreds of thousands dead. Slowly what once alarmed us no longer matters as much.

“If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." These are the words of a woman whose acts of charity and kindness earned her sainthood – Mother Teresa. 

They exemplify one of the most baffling aspects of the human response to the plight of others. While most of us will see a single death as a tragedy, we can struggle to have the same response to large-scale loss of life. Too often, the deaths of many simply become a statistic.

Even now we can see the same strange process happening as the worldwide death toll due to coronavirus rises. The number of lives claimed by the virus has already exceeded 400,000 and more than seven million cases have been recorded in 200 countries. Each death is a tragedy played out on an individual level, with a family left shocked and bereaved. But as we zoom out, can anyone really wrap their head around such large numbers?

This brings to mind Ernie Pyle, America's most beloved war correspondent in WWII. A Japanese bullet killed Pyle just as the war was wrapping up. In a pocket he had folded what was intended to be his last column on the war. This is what he wrote.

"But there are many of the living who have burned
into their brains forever the unnatural sight of cold dead men
scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows
of hedge throughout the world.

Dead men by mass production - in one country after another -
month after month and year after year. Dead men in
winter and dead men in summer.

Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they
become monotonous.

Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come to
almost hate them. 

These are the things that you at home need
not even try to understand. To you at home they are columns
of figures, or he is a near one who went away and just
didn't come back. You didn't see him lying so grotesque
and pasty beside the gravel road in France. 

We saw him, saw him by the multiple thousands.

That's the difference.

And then Ernie Pyle became one of the "monstrous infinity."

Aren't we falling back into this "pit of callous indifference"?

In the US, which reached a grim milestone of 100,000 deaths last month, journalists have reached for ways to help people understand the devastation. The figure is “twice the number of Americans lost during the entire Vietnam War”, and “exceeds the number of US military combat fatalities in every conflict since the Korean War”.

But our inability to comprehend the suffering that such numbers entail can harm the way we respond to such tragedies. Even now, there is evidence that people are suffering from coronavirus news fatigue and reading less about the pandemic. 

This might be due, in part, to a psychological phenomenon known as psychic numbing, the idea that “the more people die, the less we care”. 

“The fast, intuitive gut feeling is miraculous in many ways, but it has some flaws,” says Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon who has been studying psychic numbing for decades. “One is that it doesn’t deal with numbers in magnitude very well. If we’re talking about lives, one life is tremendously important and valuable and we’ll do anything to protect that life, save that life, rescue that person. But as the numbers increase, our feelings don’t commensurately increase as well.”

As compassion fades, it exacts a toll - in lives.

Slovic’s research suggests that as statistical numbers associated with a tragedy get larger and larger, we become desensitised and have less of an emotional response to them. This in turn leaves us less likely to take the kind of action needed to stop genocides, send aid after natural disasters or pass legislation to fight global warming. In the case of the pandemic, it may be leading to a kind of apathy that is making people complacent about hand washing or wearing a mask – both of which have been shown to reduce transmission of the virus. (Read more about why people are ignoring social distancing rules.) 

...

“If you see one child, you can focus on the child,” he says. “You can think about who they are and how they are like your own child. You can concentrate more deeply on one person than two. [With two] your attention starts to lessen and so do your feelings. And our feelings are what drive our behaviour.” 

Slovic’s research has also found that the positive feelings associated with donating to one child, or “warm glow”, was reduced when people were reminded about the children they weren’t able to help, a phenomenon he and his colleagues call “pseudo inefficiency”.

Here's the deal. A good many scientists think mankind isn't getting out of this 21st century with a population of more than a couple of billion. We're closing in on 8 billion at the moment. That means that we're going to have to shed two out of three - or more - to bring our species back into some sort of balance with what will be a greatly degraded biosphere, planet Earth.  What can that do but bring back the very worst form of tribalism that posits one group against all others?

What happens if caring and compassion become a burden we cannot bear?

Mulcair Bites Back

I haven't always agreed with failed NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, but he's on the money in his op-ed in the latest Maclean's, "How Canada became an environmental outlier."

Liberals and the left freely denounced Stephen Harper for turning Canada into a climate pariah. At UN climate summits Canada was regularly mocked for our shoddy policies on greenhouse gases.  Then we elected another eco-champion, the son of the great Pierre Trudeau.

There was a lot of hope during the negotiation of the Paris Accord just after the 2015 election. I was in the conference room in Paris when Justin Trudeau, representing a new generation of world leaders, threw out his arms wide and proclaimed, “Canada is back!” What he forgot to mention was that Canada was back with Stephen Harper’s plan, Stephen Harper’s timelines and Stephen Harper’s targets—the same targets that Trudeau had derided as being woefully inadequate during the his election campaign.

Canada was once again playing to type. Canadians who cared about the environment and climate change could feel better about themselves. Even if the results still weren’t there (we haven’t met even Stephen Harper’s targets since signing the Paris Accord), at least they were no longer embarrassed. We had a new leader who could emote on the subject, even if Canada still didn’t walk that talk.

In short order our hopes were dashed. Justin was merely the last in a line of Liberal leaders that went all the way back to Chretien.

Jean Chretien will always get credit for signing the Kyoto Protocol even though Canada went on to have one of the worst records in the world for GHG increases. Stephen Harper famously called the Kyoto Protocol a “socialist scheme designed to suck money from rich countries”. Chretien and Harper had results that were similar, but one approach was welcoming to environmentalists and the other, to the oil patch.

Both sides were talking to their base: the Conservatives in mocking Kyoto, the Liberals in signing it. But with both Liberal and Conservative governments, Canada has consistently failed to meet its international obligations on climate change. As highly-respected former sustainable development commissioner Julie Gelfand pointed out in her final report, Canadian governments had shown a disturbing failure to meet our climate obligations for decades.

As Chretien’s former chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg later admitted, Canada didn’t have any plan to meet the Kyoto targets and it was mostly about “galvanizing public opinion”, in other words, it was largely an exercise in political communication.

Just when the Liberal government desperately needed a smoke screen, along comes a pandemic.

Perhaps not surprising then that the only thing Trudeau did on the environment during the COVID-19 pandemic was weaken environmental rules to help the fossil fuel industry, just as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers had requested. The stakes are high and it really is a question of which generation will lead us out of the current health and economic crisis.

Trudeau and Peter MacKay, his likely Conservative opponent in the next federal election, represent the same generation—one that has failed on the environment. Anyone hoping that we could see a change should meditate on MacKay’s reflection on Canada’s role in combating climate change: “We can throw all our car keys in Halifax harbour, turn down the heat, turn off the lights, walk around naked in the dark eating organic beets and it won’t make a difference.”

None of this will make any difference with the Liberal party faithful. They will continue to gush and swoon over their oh-so decent leader, ignoring how he has betrayed Canada, especially future generations of Canadians, even if he does seem more like Chretien's kid than Pierre's. 

The Great Athabascan Write Off

 It's not like Justin Trudeau and Jason Kenney couldn't see this coming. It's just that they wouldn't.

Bloomberg reports that energy giant, Exxon, is preparing to write off certain fossil fuel reserves as "unviable" in the world's new energy markets.  For Exxon that may mean writing down 20 per cent of the company's booked reserves.

If depressed prices persist for the rest of the year, “certain quantities of crude oil, bitumen and natural gas will not qualify as proved reserves at year-end 2020,” the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. A 20 per cent hit would impact the equivalent of almost 4.5 billion barrels of crude, or enough to supply every refinery on the U.S. Gulf Coast for 18 months. 

The company’s massive Kearl oil-sands mine in Alberta was the only specific asset singled as a potential victim of any year-end revision. Imperial Oil Ltd., which is about 70 per cent owned by Exxon and run as a subsidiary, said in a separate filing that an undetermined portion of Kearl’s reserves may be imperiled. 

Exxon isn’t waiting until the traditional end-of-year period to reasses reserves. After slashing its drilling budget by US$10 billion to cope with the virus-driven market collapse, the company on Wednesday said it removed about 1 billion barrels from its books. Most of that involved shale fields, according to the filing.

Exxon is by no means alone. Chevron, a half-owner of the Kitimat LNG plant, already took a $ 2 billion ($1.6 billion USD) write down on the project and is trying, so far in vain, to find a buyer to take it off the company's hands.

Of course Kenney has sunk billions of Alberta money into Keystone XL and Trudeau has sunk vastly more of your money into the Trans Mountain expansion and I'm sure neither one of them is going to look like complete idiots which leaves them with a vested interest in keeping this charade going at least until the next bunch takes over.

Surprise - Destroy Habitat, Say Hello to Disease

Okay, a study confirms it. There, are you happy?

The human destruction of natural ecosystems increases the numbers of rats, bats and other animals that harbour diseases that can lead to pandemics such as Covid-19, a comprehensive analysis has found. 

The research assessed nearly 7,000 animal communities on six continents and found that the conversion of wild places into farmland or settlements often wipes out larger species. It found that the damage benefits smaller, more adaptable creatures that also carry the most pathogens that can pass to humans. 

The assessment found that the populations of animals hosting what are known as zoonotic diseases were up to 2.5 times bigger in degraded places, and that the proportion of species that carry these pathogens increased by up to 70% compared with in undamaged ecosystems.

Humans populations are being increasingly hit by diseases that originate in wild animals, such as HIV, Zika, Sars and Nipah virus. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, there have been a series of warnings from the UN and WHO that the world must tackle the cause of these outbreaks – the destruction of nature – and not just the health and economic symptoms. 

In June, experts said the Covid-19 pandemic was an “SOS signal for the human enterprise”, while in April the world’s leading biodiversity experts said even more deadly disease outbreaks were likely unless nature was protected.

I'll say it again. Mankind's tenure on planet Earth, our one and only biosphere, the life support system we share with every other lifeform, depends on one thing - our ability and willingness to live in harmony with nature.

Look at it this way. All these recent contagions have whittled down mankind's numbers by how much? They haven't. Our population has grown from 2.5 billion at my birth to nearly 8 billion today. That's 8 billion and still growing.

Now let's see how the rest of the planet is doing. Since 1970, when mankind transformed into environmental berserkers, also known as neoliberals, the overall populations of terrestrial and marine life have plummeted by 60 per cent and more.

Okay, let's swap places. Let's say human population had been slashed by 60 per cent since we embraced the neoliberal order. Instead of eight billion today, we'd be well under two billion. The world would probably be a far nicer place for all life on Earth just as it was in the 50s. There would be plenty of room, an abundance of resources, a healthy and stable environment, the "world would be our oyster" so to speak.

That's not what happened - at least not just yet. We could, however, restore Heaven on Earth if we just agreed to depopulate. We need to get back to around two billion. We've degraded the environment that about two billion humans is today's maximum carrying capacity.

Don't worry, that two billion target is not just doable, it's inevitable. We're going to get there - one way or the other. The question is whether it'll be on our terms or nature's.  We still have the ability to drive at great speed right over the cliff, and we are on that course, but then nature, gravity, takes over.

UPDATE

If you like your science warnings in bullet form, here, fill your boots.

Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study.

Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists

Insect numbers down 25% since 1990, global study finds

World leaders urged to 'step back from precipice' of ecological ruin

Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief

Coronavirus is an ‘SOS signal for the human enterprise’

Covid-19 is nature's wake-up call to complacent civilisation George Monbiot

Look, I could spend days posting links to scientific studies and reports, essays and news stories going back years, decades, that make the same points, sound the same warnings. If you don't like these links or if you want more, Google has it all at your fingertips.

The most important point, even more important than the dire warnings themselves, is that this is not going away. Shutting your eyes won't save you or your kids or your grandchildren. We've got just two choices - either a survivable crash landing or headfirst, a smoking hole in the ground. 

Add This to Your Vocabulary - 'Refugia'

Around the world, southern hemisphere and northern, there is a mass migration underway.

Species, terrestrial and marine; insect, reptile, mammal, bird, even plants are shifting ever poleward away from the overheating equatorial and tropical zones.

During the Ice Age species that survived migrated toward the equatorial/tropical latitudes. This time migration is in the opposite direction and the rate of change is comparatively abrupt.

By and large the pace of migration is moderated by the speed at which each creature's food chain moves. There are exceptions but the need to feed is a major factor.

Another factor is a specie's ability to acclimate to cooler, even colder habitation. It can take years to acclimate to a new climate. It has been estimated that, in previous extinctions, one degree Celsius per millennia was the threshold.

Today, however, man-made climate change could trigger warming rates of four, even five degrees Celsius in just one century. Many species simply cannot evolve that fast. They're in a race to find refugia.

"We're literally living through a redistribution of life on Earth," said Gretta Pecl, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania and lead author on a recent study of range shift in the journal Science. "Even though this is my bread and butter that I work on, it really does blow my mind ... the extent of this phenomena." 

Pecl said the way this is playing out, in broad strokes, is that in the Northern Hemisphere, plants and animals are moving north, while in the Southern Hemisphere, they're moving south.

Seeking cooler homes, plants and animals are also "going to higher elevations on mountains and deeper in the ocean, and it really is a pervasive movement of the geography of life."

Ultimately, these species are seeking what scientists call climate change "refugia" — areas where they can survive at a time of environmental instability.

Diana Stralberg, a research associate at the University of Alberta, said the concept of refugia has been around for a while as a way to examine where species escaped during major changes in climate in the past, such as ice ages. 

Stralberg said that in the current era, many scientists think of climate change refugia "as a slow lane for species in a rapidly changing world." 

The "slow lane" refers to "areas that are changing more slowly with respect to the surrounding landscape," said Stralberg. "These are areas where species and ecosystems can bide time while they adapt to change — or we can figure out how to slow down the process of climate change." 

In their research, Stralberg and her colleagues have identified certain slow lanes for climate change in Canada, including mountain ranges.

Does humanity, the species that has been singularly instrumental in the migratory flight, have some responsibility to create and preserve refugia pathways? Can we afford not to? Remember, the more of these species that become effectively extinct, the harder it will be for us to survive. That's why Noah built such a bloody enormous ark.

These micro-climates stay cooler, becoming a safe haven for animals pushed out of their ranges due to warming temperatures. Stralberg said that in seeking sanctuary, species in these areas could, for example, move higher up mountains or along river corridors, areas that they "can more readily shift to."

By mapping out these slow lanes, Stralberg and her colleagues want to show the parts of Canada that have the most value in preserving biodiversity, in the hopes they can "protect those areas in parks or conservation areas, or work with industry to manage them."

Around the world we're spending trillions to help our people get through Covid-19 with some semblance of social order intact. How much are we willing to invest on the survival of nature?

Nothing Says "Donald Trump" Quite Like Donald Trump

I've decided to post Trump's entire Axios interview from last weekend. It is something that needs to be watched in its entirety.

Just keep reminding yourself that you're listening to the president of the United States of America.  America's president.  When you're done, ask yourself where America would be if it has to endure four more years of this guy.

Covid-19 Crashes Virgin Atlantic

Richard Branson's airline, Virgin Atlantic, has filed for bankruptcy.  Watch for more airlines to follow suit.

Branson has struggled for months to keep the airline in business.

British billionaire Richard Branson has offered to put his private island up as collateral in order to save his Virgin Atlantic airline from collapse.

In an open letter to all of Virgin Group, Branson pledged his private Necker Island, which is located in the British Virgin Islands, as collateral to save Virgin Atlantic.

"As with other Virgin assets, our team will raise as much money against the island as possible to save as many jobs as possible around the Group," Branson said.

Trump's Tsunami

By now most people realize Donald Trump is a dirtbag. Has been all his life. A grifter from a multi-generational family of grifters. A pathological liar who learned a very long time ago that the best way to cope with so many lies is to believe them yourself.

There have been a lot of tell-all books about Trump and his presidency that soared to the best-sellers lists. So many books that they've reached a saturation point. I bought several at the outset and then shifted to e-books - "Fire and Fury," "Fear," "A Very Stable Genius," "Crime in Progress," "A Warning," "Siege," and "The Room Where It Happened." Other titles include  Jeffrey Toobin's "True Crimes and Misdemeanors," Rick Wilson's "Running Against the Devil," plus "The Plot to Betray America," "Hiding in Plain Sight," "The Imposters: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics," "Front Row at the Trump Show" and others.

Trump's niece, Mary, had a hit with her family tell all, "Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."  Apparently it's good. I'll probably never know. Rachel Maddow has a book.

With Trump at real risk of being unemployed after the November elections there are several more titles being rushed to release.  James Comey is looking to cash in. Then there's Trump's partner in crime, Michael Cohen's book - that one I will read. I hear there are several others.

The Miami Herald crew have been sleuthing the Jeffrey Epstein scandal for years. MH has done more than anyone to keep that scandal alive.  Trump has worked hard to distance himself from Epstein. A new book, "The Grifters' Club," claims that, despite Trump's denials, Epstein was very much a member of Mar-a-Lardo and that friendship remained close until Epstein crossed the line by hitting on the young daughter of another member.

Another club member explained that Trump “kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member. The way this person described it, such an act could irreparably harm the Trump brand, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein,” said Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter who co-wrote the book with Miami Herald journalists Nicholas Nehamas and Jay Weaver and Caitlin Ostroff of the Wall Street Journal. “The Trump Organization did not respond to our requests for comment on this or other matters.”

Several models who worked for Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly helped procure for him underage girls, tell of being taken to swank parties at Mar-a-Lago. Zoe Brock, a New Zealander who quit Brunel’s agency in Paris in 1991 after, she says, she was on the receiving end of his unwanted sexual advances at age 17, still has the wristband from when, while with another agency, she and other young girls and women were taken together on a bus from Miami to Mar-a-Lago in 1998.

Brock was represented by Next, a modeling agency that only last year was revealed by the Daily Beast to have been — unbeknownst to Brock — partially owned by Brunel. At 24, she was one of the eldest women on the bus to Mar-a-Lago; many she is sure were underage. Brock said she had been pressured by the agency to attend against her wishes and was paid to be there. Once they arrived, she and the other models were required to wear candy cane-striped wristbands, although it was not Christmas season.

“The only people wearing them were the models. A busload of girls, some of whom were underage, shipped to a party and made to look obvious. Clearly, we were meat. None of the other guests were forced to wear anything so tacky,” Brock said in an interview from New Zealand.

“It makes perfect sense to me that Jean-Luc owned the agency that was being paid to send girls there. That was his MO [modus operandi],” Brock said of Brunel. “Let me send pretty young things to grotesque, rich, old perverts and profit off it.”

The Grifters' Club is a tattler on the goings on and strange characters who frequent Mar-a-Lardo.

Donald Trump's opulent Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago has thrummed with scandal since the earliest days of his presidency. Long known for its famous and wealthy clientele, the resort's guest list soon started filling with political operatives and power-seekers. Meanwhile, as Trump re-branded Mar-a-Lago "the Winter White House" and began spending weekends there, state business spilled out into full view of the club's members, and vast sums of taxpayer money and political donations began flowing into its coffers--and into the pockets of the president. 

The Grifters' Club is a breakthrough account of the corruption, intrigue, and absurdity that has been on display in the place where the president is at his most relaxed. In these pages, a team of prizewinning Miami Herald journalists reveal the activities and motivations of the strange array of charlatans and tycoons who populate its halls. Some peddle influence, some look to steal government secrets, and some just want to soak up the feeling of unfettered access to the world's most powerful leaders.

I'm not sure there were that many books written about Joe Stalin. Some of these titles may be worthwhile but I doubt that Trump has much to fear from them. People have already made up their minds. Those who'll vote for Trump won't be in any hurry to read them. Those planning to vote Democrat won't be swayed either.

Kissing the Mighty Athabasca Goodbye

Ottawa and Alberta have hatched a plan to cut monitoring of Canada's massive Love Canal, the Athabasca Tar Sands.

The deal says no fieldwork is to be done on the main branch of the Athabasca River. That means the program won’t fund monitoring downstream of the oil sands even as the province considers proposals to allow the water from oil sands tailings ponds to be released into the river. 

The deal also says there’ll be no field studies on wetlands, fish or insects. 

A pilot project gauging the risks posed by tailings ponds has been dropped. Water quality assessment in Wood Buffalo National Park – part of a response to international concerns about environmental degradation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site – is gone.

I know. Let's blame it on Covid-19!

Jim Herbers of the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute says his funding was cut to $1.4-million from the usual $4-million to $5-million.

“Field monitoring is the biggest component of what we’re not going to be doing this year,” he said. 

“The work around monitoring for amphibians, birds and mammals, that work won’t be undertaken. Nor will work on tracking indicators related to plants or changes in habitat.”
Herbers said he was told the cuts were made to protect workers from COVID-19. 

Bill Donahue, a former senior civil servant with Alberta’s science and monitoring programs, said leaving the Athabasca River unmonitored is “crazy.” 

“We’ve got one of the biggest industrial developments – the primary problems of which are contamination of the environment and consumption of water – and there’s no downstream monitoring.”

Don't worry, be happy! It's not like you live there, do ya?

Breaking Faith

If there's one fundamental duty upon elected officials that rises above all others it is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the public.

Covid 19 has shown that our elected officials serve many masters and, in doing so, too often compromise that paramount obligation. They break faith.

Nowhere is this more evident that in the United States where, after months of dithering, outright lies and shameless manipulation, the most powerful nation in the world with the largest economy in the world and the highest standard of living in the world and just four per cent of the global population has amassed fully one quarter of the global Covid-19 death toll. Yes, America, once again you are indeed Number One, incontestably so.

Even at this late stage, with a federal election just three months off, Donald Trump is falling back into his old ways, renewing his discredited pitch for hydroxychloroquine, proferring the claims of a doctor who believes that people are having sex with aliens or, worse, demons. Trump is now on the attack, ridiculing both of the White House Covid experts, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, the latter having finally found the courage to stray from Trump's nonsense.

NPR/IPSOS polls show that, when it comes to the pandemic, the American people are not on the same page as their president. The coronavirus is shaping up to be Trump's Hurricane Katrina.

The American people believe the White House has bungled the emergency. 66 per cent of respondents say their governments management of the pandemic has been worse than other countries (41 per cent say "much worse.") Trump's triumphalist message is falling on deaf ears.

Some 70 per cent believe it's time to start over, to put the nation into lockdown again for at least two weeks. A solid majority want a mandatory directive compelling everyone to wear a mask while in public.

Healthcare experts are saying that America has lost control of the virus.

Next up will be the anticipated horror stories as "in person" classes re-open. In some states, August 17 is the opening day. Will grade school kids be any better at social distancing, handwashing, etc. than young adults have been over this summer? If not, what awaits? Will this dominate the news in the weeks before the November 3rd election?

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are balking at extending emergency benefits even as many Americans are out of work, without healthcare insurance and now without means to pay for groceries or their rent.

James Lovelock - The Old Git Greets His Second Century

James Lovelock has now logged a full century on this Earth. He just turned 101. And, while his opinions of Gaia, Earth, can ebb and flow, even the pandemic doesn't get him down.

After Fauci, Trump Has New Whipping Boy, Dr. Deborah Birx.

As half of the White House covid-19 tag team, Dr. Deobrah Birx, flew under the radar while Dr. Anthony Fauci was the lightning rod for Trump and his administration.

When she spoke of the virus, Dr. Birx always seemed to parse her words in ways that would not contradict her president.  For that she drew the scorn of the Democrat's House leader, Nancy Pelosi.

Birx' armistice with Trump ended yesterday when she gave an interview about the alarming spread of the virus.  Trump blamed her candid remarks on Birx trying to appease Pelosi. In a tweet he called it "pathetic."

While Trump has been in an ongoing public back-and-forth with Fauci, this is the first time he has singled out Birx, who has worked especially closely with the president, for a public shaming. 

The New York Times previously reported that Birx was delivering an optimistic outlook to Trump on the path of the coronavirus infections “curve”, which did not reflect a worse situation on the ground. Pelosi spoke badly of Birx behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last week, Politico reported. 

Trump’s Monday criticism of Birx was part of a flurry of morning tweets, as the White House and Congress were under pressure to respond to the urgent economic situation facing tens of millions of American families.

Happy B.C. Day

Or whatever you call it in your province - happy, happy.

I began my day with a news story that put me in a cheery state of mind. Sea otters are back in large numbers along the BC coast.  Not the numbers they reached before we began hunting them, almost to extinction, for the Asian market but big enough that they're on track to re-establishing themselves.

And, just in time too.  Sea otters don't eat fish. They eat clams where they're plentiful but they eat massive quantities of sea urchins. Right now that shopping basket is full.  We're facing a plague of sea urchins that threaten the seabed ecosystem as they chow down on one of their favourite foods, kelp.

When sea urchins get too numerous you lose your kelp forests and those kelp forests anchor an entire marine ecosystem.  California had a nightmarish loss of kelp until they put otters on a protected list. The urchin population was controlled, the kelp returned and the natural order was restored. Haida Gwaii has been devastated just as California was.

A good many of today's sea otters were brought in from Alaska to bays along Vancouver Island. Nice water, scads of food, what's not to like?

The only complaints have come from coastal First Nations in the north. When hunters eradicated the sea otter from their waters it produced a bounty of clams on which the locals feasted.  All manner of clams, abalone, etc. Now that the otters are back they're taking most of those mollusks. Hopefully something can be worked out.

It's a magnificent sight to go down to a dock, gaze into the emerald water and watch a forest of kelp swaying in the currents. You know that, just beneath the surface and right to the bottom there's all sorts of life that can't flourish without the kelp.

If You Haven't Seen It, Here's Bill Gates TED Talk

No leader - no prime minister, no president, can claim that they weren't warned. None, including our own, can say they weren't warned of the danger of a pandemic and that we weren't prepared for it.

They were warned, repeatedly. They ignored the warnings when they ought to have treated it as an opportunity to prepare, a chance to defend the people they're supposed to protect. That's their job and, instead, they ignored it.

Listen to Bill Gates TED Talk from 2015, a few months before Justin Trudeau became prime minister.



So what did our entirely decent prime minister do?

Sources close to the matter said the Auditor-General is planning to probe the government’s handling of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, which was a central part of the country’s advance surveillance, early detection and risk-assessment capacity for outbreaks. 

The Globe and Mail reported on Saturday that a key part of GPHIN’s function was effectively shut down last spring, amid changing government priorities that shifted analysts to other work. According to 10 years of documents obtained by The Globe, the system went silent on May 24 last year, after issuing more than 1,500 alerts over the past decade about potential outbreaks including MERS, H1N1, avian flu and Ebola.

Canada's pandemic early warning system went dark in the spring of 2019 because our government shut it down.  It's too early to judge Justin Trudeau. We need to hear his side of this sad story but it had better be good because, unlike his previous controversies, this time people died - perhaps unnecessarily.

Madness Descends

They were once the scourge of social media. Now they're aiming for a foothold in Congress.

QAnon, a social media creation for those who like their conspiracy theories on steroids, might see a couple of its adherents elected to congress this November.  At least one has the overt backing of Donald Trump.

According to one congressional candidate for America’s House of Representatives, Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement are a screen “for pedophilia and human trafficking”. 

Another has claimed the US has a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out”, while several others running for national office have posted cryptic memes hinting at a powerful global elite that must be abolished. 

These believers in QAnon, a conspiracy theory labelled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI, are all running for national office – not as fringe independents, but as Republican candidates.

Remember, "pizzagate"? Yeah, it's the same bunch of loons. The GOP, having already succumbed to the Tea Party contagion, how seems powerless to resist QAnon.

Travis View, the co-host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, which tackles the conspiracy theory, said that QAnon followers tend to be “extremely politically active”, both in terms of voting and promoting candidates online. 

That could be one reason why there has so far been little condemnation of these candidates, or of QAnon itself, from senior Republicans. 

“I cannot find a Republican leader who has said a bad thing about QAnon,” View said.
“I’m so fascinated by the weird line that Republican leadership is walking right now. Republicans cannot afford to spare a single vote, so they need to get as many voters on board as possible. 

“That may explain why they’re doing this weird dance where they don’t want to say a bad word about QAnon, but also not give any explicit endorsement to QAnon either.”

Forbes has more detail on the QAnon campaign to break into Congress.

The Washington Post reports on the ways the Trump administration openly flirts with QAnon, despite the FBI designating it a terrorist organization.

The erroneous ideas defining QAnon — that Trump is a messianic figure fighting the so-called deep state, that he alone can be trusted, that his opponents include both Democrats and Republicans complicit in years of wrongdoing and that his rivals are not just misguided but criminal and illegitimate — represent core tenets of the president’s reelection campaign, especially as his poll numbers slump.

Meanwhile, the salvation envisioned by QAnon believers, including military takeover and mass arrests of Democrats, rhymes with the president’s vow to use the armed forces to “dominate.” They back his endorsement of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that has not been proved to prevent coronavirus infection, and cast skeptics, including Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, as a deep-state plant.

“We’re seeing the Trump campaign tack closely to an almost explicitly QAnon narrative,” said Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I don’t expect to hear the president talking about pedophilia or Satanism, but I expect to hear almost everything else.”

Meanwhile, in his own personal alternative universe, Trump is back at it. Apparently fed up with all the sunlight shining on Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump is back on the attack.

Donald Trump launched an extraordinary attack on his own top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, arguing against the doctor’s claim that high rates of infection in the US stem from a less aggressive reaction to the virus in terms of economic shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. 

“Wrong!” countered the president as he retweeted a video of Fauci making the point in recent congressional testimony. 

Fauci had explained that differentiations between surging US infections and a sharp decrease seen across Europe could be explained by the different reactions to the virus. Fauci said most European countries shut their economies down by 95%, while the US only shut down its economy by half. 

Trump countered: “We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases. How did Italy, France & Spain do? Now Europe sadly has flare ups. Most of our governors worked hard & smart. We will come back STRONG!”

Now That We're Talking Viruses and Pandemics

What is a pandemic? What is an epidemic? How do viruses, left unchecked, ravage societies? How did a slave in colonial Boston reveal the secret to thwart smallpox, vaccination? Why does Bill Gates warn that the next pandemic might not be caused by carelessness or oversight but an act of terrorism?

These questions and more are explored in the latest episode of the "Cautionary Tales" podcast, 'How to End a Pandemic'. It's well worth a listen.

Covid 19's Best Friend - Authoritarians

The far right and Covid-19 are best pals. Whether it's Trump's America or Bolsonaro's Brazil, Mahdi's India, BoJo's Britain, even Kenney's Alberta, Thug Rule does seem to encourage the pandemic's spread.

Now I know - there are exceptions. Netanyahu's Israel comes to mind. Wait, what's that?

WHAT CAUSES a country to succeed, or fail, in containing covid-19? Israel offers an example of both. When the novel coronovirus reached the country in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly ordered a border closure and a national shutdown, then held nightly news conferences to remind citizens to wear masks and wash their hands. He forged a coalition government with the leading opposition party that pledged to focus almost exclusively on the pandemic for six months.

Infections plummeted, to a low of 10 new cases a day in mid-May. Mr. Netanyahu’s poll ratings soared. “So far we’ve done it better than nearly every other country in the world,” he boasted. The hubristic prime minister then proceeded to demonstrate how not to manage the disease. He ordered a quick reopening of businesses, entertainment and schools. “We want to make your lives easier, to allow you to go out and get some air . . . to drink a cup of coffee and to have a beer as well,” he told Israelis. “So first of all, enjoy yourselves.”

The predictable result: Israel is now averaging more than 1,770 new covid-19 infections per day and ranks fifth in the world on a per capita basis in the past week, just behind the United States. Mr. Netanyahu’s approval rating has fallen from 74 percent to 46 percent, according to one polling organization. The prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem and his home outside Tel Aviv lately have been the sites of near-nightly demonstrations led by infuriated young people. 

They're all working from the same playbook. They're shown what works but they tire of it. Then they do a 180 and it blows up in their country's face. People die. Even more people have long-lasting damage. The economy tanks. Whatever progress they made or might have made is forgone.

(The photo above? It's Israeli protesters swarming Netanyahu's official residence this evening. Perhaps Trump had something like this in mind when he fortified the White House with a big, "no climb" wall.)

In Fairness to Donald Trump

It's not easy being "fair" to Donald Trump. I can't think of another leader so needy, pathetic, dishonest and cruel as this guy. That's not to say there haven't been worse leaders, guys such as Stalin or Hitler and their ilk were way worse than Trump.

In the name of fairness, let's leave out the needy, pathetic, dishonest and cruel stuff. Let's look instead at what this 'very stable genius' did to the American economy over just the past half year, how Trump gambled America's future on a bet that Covid-19 would just magically disappear.

WaPo columnist, David Von Drehle, does a masterful job of sifting through the ashes.

The government on July 30 published its quarterly report on economic growth, offering a window on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. To say this glimpse was ugly deeply understates the picture. From the first of April to the end of June, the U.S. economy contracted by nearly 10 percent — a sharper drop than in the worst months of the Great Depression.

“Worse than the Great Depression” was not the headline Trump was hoping for. But his power over the news cycle has been compared to a cat owner shaking keys in front of a kitten. Within minutes of the report, Trump tweeted a risible suggestion that the November election should be postponed.

...If we ignore Trump’s shiny, bouncing keys, we can see that the administration’s happy-talk economic team, led by lightweights Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro, cannot be trusted to teach us. They keep saying the economy will spring back — as it plunges over a cliff. 

The newly reported round of data started on April 1. A few weeks earlier, Trump had declared the national coronavirus emergency and the country locked down — an announcement that immediately caused the biggest drop in the nation’s economic output since the crash of 2008. That shocking initial jolt is not included in the new numbers; it was reported in the previous quarter.

...Of course, the president’s idea of accountability is to take responsibility only when the economic news is good. Why, just a few weeks ago, Trump was bragging about the success of his rush to reopen.

That’s right: Bored with the work of controlling the pandemic — or as he likes to call it, “the sniffles” — Trump embraced the freedom of Americans to crowd into bars and political rallies without masks on. For a couple of upbeat weeks, unemployment numbers were moving in the right direction. No key-jangling then.

Hailing the May jobless numbers, Trump “took a victory lap” on June 5, according to the Associated Press. “This shows what we’ve been doing is right,” he boasted. A month later, after more good numbers, Trump said the June economy was “spectacular news for American workers and American families.”

...Since the, um, spectacular news early in July, new covid-19 infections have risen to all-time highs. Deaths nationwide have again surged past 1,000 per day. Planned reopenings are being scaled back or canceled. Major companies are announcing mass layoffs. Three of the four largest state economies — California, Texas and Florida — are reeling, gut-punched. The dollar has taken its steepest fall in a decade as the Federal Reserve opens box after box of Monopoly money.

That’s how the story begins for Quarter No. 3. Unemployment numbers, already at record levels, are climbing again. Congress can’t seem to agree on additional relief to millions of jobless Americans who, at this rate, soon won’t have money for food or rent. Their suffering will push more businesses into bankruptcy. Banks are expecting to see more borrowers default. With tax collections down sharply amid the crash, large-scale layoffs of state and local government workers are likely the next body blow in store.

...The money mavens like what they hear about a vaccine for the novel coronavirus just over the horizon. Haven’t they noticed that there is no surefire vaccine for influenza, HIV, viral pneumonia or the common cold? When did virus vaccines become so easy? Beyond that dodgy wager, the equity markets have become a casino full of bored online gamblers, awaiting the return of football. Enjoy it while the game lasts. 

Trump knows all about casinos. He used to own three in Atlantic City, until he ran them into the trash heap. (His last, Trump Taj Mahal, closed in 2016.) Then he started his new job. Trump went all-in, as gamblers say, on a wager that covid-19 would “go away.” No wonder he’d like to change the subject. Jangle, jangle.

Trump Heads For the Bunker

Has Donald Trump run out of steam? Has he lost his mojo? Is he in a Trump slump?

What did he really mean when he said earlier this week that "Nobody likes me"?

Trump was speaking about the popularity of his pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

It's been Trump's ugly nature to find excuses to get rid of people in his inner circle who become too popular for Trump's liking. For weeks Fauci was sidelined. Trump decided that he would deliver White House coronavirus briefings. Didn't work. The press wanted to hear from Fauci and they sought him out. Over the past couple of weeks, Fauci became the target of a smear campaign that sought to undermine Fauci's credibility. Didn't work. Fauci retained the respect of the American people. Trump's numbers tumbled.

But there's more to the Trump Slump than his tiff with Dr. Fauci.

In a week that saw a devastating global pandemic worsen, a record economic meltdown confirmed and an all-out bid to stoke racial tensions for political gain deepen, Trump is finding himself more and more the odd man out: absent and detached from the leadership of either party, locked in antique cultural battles and increasingly unpopular among voters.

Congressional Republicans seem to have lost their fear of their vindictive commander in chief. Many Repugs are now fearful that Trump could be an anchor around their necks, costing them seats in the House and perhaps even control of the Senate.

When Trump floated the notion of postponing the November elections, the Republican leadership rejected the idea out of hand.

By Wednesday, Trump's isolation from the leaders of his own party -- who are hoping to salvage what is shaping up to be a tough November -- seemed cemented. Aboard Air Force One, Trump indicated to associates that he would not intervene in the Kansas Republican primary, even after hearing appeals from both his political team and senior Republicans that the seat -- and control of the Senate -- was at risk if conservative firebrand Kris Kobach wins.

Trump went golfing as former presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama delivered eulogies at the funeral of civil rights leader and congressman, John Lewis, a man Trump vilified and despised.

Trump is spending the first August weekend golfing but not at hurricane-threatened Mar-a-Lardo. He's gone to Trump National in Virginia (actually Washington, D.C.). The plebs can weather the storm.

Now Trump is again reduced to trying to revive hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19, another flop.

White House officials are still weighing their options for how Trump will formally accept the nomination, one person familiar with the planning said, including assessing sites around the country where he might deliver a prime-time address. Yet the task has proven difficult as Trump insists upon something dramatic while aides work to temper some of his expectations about the scale of the potential venues. 

Aides say Trump has grown to recognize the extreme political peril he's created for himself less than 100 days until the election. When he speaks with friends, his grievances are long and his complaints are ample but his willingness or ability to alter course seems minimal, according to people who have spoken to him. 

Trump has voiced versions of "nobody likes me" for the past several months, those people said, describing an in-the-dumps president brought low by a pandemic he feels he has little ability to control.

As a professional grifter from a multi-generational family of grifters, Trump probably always knew that  the voting public would eventually get wise to his nonsense. In 2016 Trump didn't have to run on his record. The guy had a TV show and some golf courses his base would never see unless they were driving a delivery truck. In 2020 Trump has a record, one he can't run from.

Russia Claims to Have a Vaccine

It's pretty big talk, the sort of thing that can leave someone looking pretty foolish if it's not true.

Russia claims it will start a mass vaccination programme this October. Russian officials say they've tested a Covid vaccine that is both safe and effective.

Russian media quoted [health minister] Mikhail Murashko as saying that doctors and teachers would be the first to receive the vaccine. 

Reuters, citing anonymous sources, said Russia's first potential vaccine would be approved by regulators this month. 

However, some experts are concerned at Russia's fast-track approach. 

On Friday, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci, said he hoped that Russia - and China - were "actually testing the vaccine" before administering them to anyone. 

Dr Fauci has said that the US should have a "safe and effective" vaccine by the end of this year.

Hmm, Tough Call. What to Open, Schools or Boozers?

A scientist advising Britain's Tory government says it may be necessary to close pubs if schools are to open next month.

Prof Graham Medley told the BBC there may need to be a "trade-off", with the re-opening of schools seen as a "priority" for children's wellbeing. 

It came after England's chief medical officer said the country was "near the limit" of opening up society. 

Boris Johnson told a Downing Street press conference on Friday he needed to "squeeze the brake pedal" on easing restrictions, following a rise in coronavirus cases. 

And England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, warned the nation had "probably reached near the limit or the limits" of what can be done to reopen society, meaning trade-offs may be needed to allow pupils to return to classrooms next month as planned. 

Asked whether restrictions of other activities may be needed to allow schools to reopen as planned, Prof Medley, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) sub-group on pandemic modelling, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think that's quite possible. 

"I think we're in a situation whereby most people think that opening schools is a priority for the health and wellbeing of children and that when we do that we are going to reconnect lots of households.

"It might come down to a question of which do you trade off against each other, and then that's a matter of prioritising. Do we think pubs are more important than schools?"