Fri - It's New, It's Nu. Who Knew It's Actually Omicron?

US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 454 Million Shots  (Population 333 Million)




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It's New and It's Nu

Four days ago no one on earth knew that B.1.1.529 existed.  Until yesterday, no one paid any attention.  Now it's all over the news.  

Is it a big deal?  The only real answer is NO ONE KNOWS.  

We won't know much for 2-3 weeks. 

I am confident of one thing.  These travel bans will not be effective if the variant is as contagious as they say.
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Some NU Headlines and Info

Oil drops 10% in worst day of the year as new Covid variant sparks global demand concerns

It appears to have a high number of mutations — about 30 — in the coronavirus’ spike protein, which could affect how easily it spreads to people.

Israel warns of 'emergency' after detecting new virus strain

EU, UK, Israel to halt air travel to southern Africa over new COVID-19 variant

A good summary article

The new variant, B.1.1.529, has a “very unusual constellation of mutations,” with more than 30 in the spike protein alone, according to Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform.

On the ACE2 receptor — the protein that helps to create an entry point for the coronavirus to infect human cells — the new variant has 10 mutations. In comparison, the Beta variant has three and the Delta variant two, Mr. de Oliveira said.

The variant shares similarities with the Lambda and Beta variants, which are associated with an innate evasion of immunity, said Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform.

“All these things are what give us some concern that this variant might have not just enhanced transmissibility, so spread more efficiently, but might also be able to get around parts of the immune system and the protection we have in our immune system,” Dr. Lessells said.





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Will This Ever End?



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We're #1!

There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people.

The Falkland Islands -- a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war -- is home to the world's second-largest stash of civilian guns per capita. But with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is almost half that of the US. Yemen -- a country in the throes of a seven-year conflict -- has the third-highest gun ownership rate at 53 guns per 100 people.
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Oh, to Be Young, Healthy, and Strapping!

Adolescents might need boosters at some point, but "it is less likely that they will, because your healthy, strapping teenagers have a much better and stronger immune response than I do as an elderly person. I gulp when I say elderly but that is the truth," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN's John Berman on Wednesday.





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Effective, But Is It Safe?  Stay Tuned.

Merck's Covid pill is effective, FDA says. Experts will now review safety.

Merck’s drug would be the first that patients could take at home to ease symptoms and speed recovery.
Federal health regulators say an experimental Covid-19 pill from Merck is effective against the virus, but they will seek input from outside experts on risks of birth defects and other potential problems in pregnant women.
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Really?  

Many people in America love Chinese food, but David R Chan is perhaps in a league of his own.

Mr Chan, a 72-year-old former tax lawyer based in Los Angeles, claims to have dined at nearly 8,000 Chinese restaurants across the US and counting. Each is archived in a spreadsheet that he has maintained for four decades, along with thousands of restaurant business cards and menus.

If you visit one Chinese restaurant per day, it would take more than 20 years to reach his current count - 7,812 restaurants.

From pineapple buns and pork belly to chicken feet and tea-smoked duck, the Chinese restaurant "collector" documents his food conquests almost daily on his social media accounts.

So Many Incorrect Jokes Come to Mind
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Here It Comes.  Here Comes Your 19th Debt Ceiling Nervous Breakdown

As Congress prepares for yet another showdown over the debt ceiling, long-term solutions for addressing what has become an increasingly partisan issue are re-emerging.

The U.S. narrowly avoided default in October after Republicans refused to vote for a debt limit increase. Democrats instead passed a short-term extension, setting up another fight for early December. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a recent letter to Congress that she has a “high degree of confidence” that the Treasury will be able to finance the government through Dec. 15. But she warned that “there are scenarios in which Treasury would be left with insufficient remaining resources” beyond that mid-December date.

The debt ceiling limits how much the government can borrow to pay its bills. Since the end of World War II, Congress has passed nearly 100 debt limit modifications in what was once a routine bipartisan process that lawmakers turned into a political cudgel in recent years.

With another fast-approaching default threat, there may not be enough time to pass a long-term solution, but lawmakers are highlighting ideas for the future.

Abolish the debt ceiling

Transfer authority to Treasury

Yarmuth and Boyle, vice chairman of the House Budget panel, introduced a bill in September that would transfer authority to lift the debt ceiling to the Treasury secretary, though it would give Congress the ability to override the decision. Yarmuth said he believed it would have a better chance than the bill abolishing the debt limit.

Remove the threat of a default

Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, made a similar argument recently, suggesting in an op-ed in Roll Call that one reform could involve tying the debt ceiling to the budget process and giving the president the power to suspend the debt limit if needed.

A $1 trillion coin


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Yesterday it Was $800,000

Donations are pouring in to help a man who was freed from a Missouri prison after a judge found that he was wrongfully convicted in 1979 in a triple killing.

The GoFundMe fundraiser to benefit Kevin Strickland had surpassed its $430,000 goal by Wednesday afternoon, and donations kept coming. By Thursday evening, it had raised more than $950,000.

It's Good News, Bad News.  The Money is Great, But Too Many Black Men are Wrongfully in Prison
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More Proof:  Mandates Work



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Want to Kill Some Antifa?  Here's Where to Go




If You Do Want To, Remember COVID Is a Hoax.  Make Sure You Expose Yourself To Someone Pretending to Have It. 
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Do We Really Need Leaf Blowers?

(1) They are highly polluting and disproportionally high in production of greenhouse gasses.

(2) They are noisy, with dangerously high decibel levels, and aurally violent.

(3) Efficient electrical alternatives are available, which are quieter and less polluting.

(4) Ultimately, they are not necessary.  Remember rakes? Remember brooms?

(5) Why not leave the leaves and grasses on the lawn, or rake them into garden beds where they can serve as natural soil amenities?
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Are You As Smart as A Brazilian?  

Far-right Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has warned that COVID-19 vaccines will turn people into crocodiles. He has spread conspiracies that the vaccine could give people AIDS. Bolsonaro has pointedly refused to get vaccinated himself ― at September’s United Nations summit in New York, he was the only major world leader present who said he had yet to take the jab.

Bolsonaro has mimicked the worst tendencies of his American idol, former President Donald Trump. But his attempts to foment the sort of skepticism and hesitancy Trump helped generate in millions of Americans have fallen completely flat.

Last week, Brazil reported that 60% of its population is now fully vaccinated, pushing it past the United States, which had a four-month head start. More than 97% of Brazilian adults have received at least one shot, and virtually every adult in São Paulo, the country’s largest city, is inoculated. Polls in July showed that just 5% of Brazilians said they’d never get the vaccine; in the U.S., somewhere between 13% and 19% of Americans still say they won’t.

Crocodiles?
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A Story From Across the Pond You May Have Missed.

An investigation was underway Thursday morning after at least 27 migrants died when their small boat capsized in the English Channel. The boat sank soon after setting off from the coast of northern France, packed with people hoping to make the short, but very dangerous 21-mile crossing to England. It's a gamble that has claimed dozens of lives this year – and one that more people have taken and continue to take in 2021 than ever before.

The capsize on Wednesday was the biggest single loss of migrant life in the Channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, since record keeping began in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.

As CBS News correspondent Imtiaz Tyab reports, it is a journey that only the most desperate people would even consider making on a tiny, overloaded boat.

Images taken on Wednesday, before the capsize was discovered by a French fishing crew, show at least one boat being pushed out to sea as French police look on.



Men, women and children board inflatable dinghies every day to attempt to cross the English Channel before the bitterness of winter sets in.

Five women and a little girl were among those killed in Wednesday's disaster.  "There were bodies floating in the water, it was very shocking to see," said French lifeboat rescuer Charles Devos. "We recovered six people. All dead."

Politicians on both sides of the Channel say people-smugglers are to blame.

I Am Sure Smugglers Are Partially To Blame, But the Politicians May Be to Blame, Too.
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That's All Folks!



The day after thanksgiving is a slow news day.

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