Yep, we’ve accumulated enough now for another update to be worthwhile….

But first, condolences to our UK readership on the news today. I saw it put best online that Queen Elizabeth II was almost the last living connection to a more dignified era. The Queen had the well earned respect for her graceful diplomacy from all nations around the world.

Monkeypox

Only news really worth mentioning here is of course the absence of news. Mostly because cases continue to dwindle down in the US. While testing has dropped, so has the positivity rate among the tests being done. The positivity rate suggests the drop will be sustained, and may mean that the testing drop is because fewer people are walking in with history of exposure or suspicious lesions for testing (and not merely ignorance or inability to order testing). Either way, looks like this initial push of monkeypox is burning out.

You should probably keep your full body condoms handy for the time being though.

Coronavirus

–Around the horn, cases are down pretty much everywhere except China (and Taiwan). China just locked down another major manufacturing city of 21 million people, and official cases continue to climb there. I would say at some point they have to acknowledge that this “Zero COVID” thing isn’t really working, but politically, I am not sure China can do that. Meanwhile, South Africa and the other Southern Hemisphere bellweathers are moving into spring without a significant winter COVID wave, and no hint of an emerging new contagious or threatening variant, all of which augurs well. We’ll return to this in a bit…

–Elsewhere, in “dog bites man” news, one pharmaceutical company has sued another over intellectual property around a similar drug in the same class. This only ever happens All. The. Time. But since it’s over the mRNA COVID vaccines, gets some press I guess. You can read more here.

–Speaking of vaccines, big news since our last update was the approval of the omicron boosters, just before the fall. I even saw Pfizer direct advertising the booster during football this past weekend, which is a first for the COVID vaccines.

In short, the booster shots that will be available contain a mixture of the mRNA encoding the original wild type spike protein that is the vaccine that most of you readers already got along with mRNA encoding a mixture of spike proteins specific for omicron and its various bastard cousins, like BA.4 and BA.5. These caused the small summer outbreaks, where if you didn’t get COVID, you probably know a few people who did. These waves, as we have discussed, have largely abated, although these viruses are still circulating to some extent.

So speaking strictly of the science here, the boosters used an atypical data package to get FDA approval. For example, the BA.5 portion in the Pfizer booster was, indeed, only verified in mice. That’s right–they injected that booster into mice, at a mouse dose, and checked to see if it created antibodies that would neutralize BA.5. It did, and that’s the data that Pfizer submitted to FDA and FDA approved. This has drawn some justifiable criticism from infectious disease experts (you’ll often have to scroll in the articles to find their quotes), as what happens in mice doesn’t necessarily indicate what will happen in humans. Otherwise, we would run all our clinical trials in mice, since they would enroll faster and any unexpected side effects would not happen to unfortunate humans. But that’s not how it works.

Granted, I agree with the *shruggie* response from many of these same experts, that there is no reason to suspect you -won’t- get the expected antibody response in humans that you get in mice. But I echo their questions about why the FDA would not insist on at least a small trial in humans. Clearly, all the FDA was looking for was evidence of antibody generation. Antibody generation alone does not also necessarily mean a reduction in successful infection OR prevention of hospitalization, which would need a formal efficacy trial. But granted, we wave the seasonal flu vaccine through every year, knowing its actual clinical efficacy will be variable as a result, because it’s generally better than nothing, particularly for high risk patients. And this was FDA’s argument, and the argument of experts in articles quoted defending this approach.

Pfizer and Moderna both argued that a formal efficacy study would have taken too long, and perhaps they did not have the shot ready when BA.4 and BA.5 were running rampant just a few months ago.

Okay. We’ll take them at their word.

On the other hand, Pfizer really couldn’t find 20 or so human volunteers for the BA.5 to at least get human antibody levels to turn in? You would also get at least a basic safety assessment in humans for that component at the same time. If Pfizer and Moderna want to voice concern about the ability to enroll a full efficacy study before the boosters would be needed for a fall booster campaign, okay, I can, squinting hard enough, start to believe that. But you couldn’t get even a reasonable handful of volunteers to get at least human antibody levels to turn in? Only mice?

I struggle to understand why that was NOT done, or insisted upon by regulators.

Worse, by not getting at least that (questionably) bare minimum, you are, yet again, making easy fodder for the “muh evil Pharma” and tribally anti-vax crowd (based more on politics than actual nuanced understanding of the vaccine and risk/benefits, as we’ve covered all along the way).

This is, without doubt, the single worst mass vaccination strategy and roll out in history. And highlights what we said last week–a big part of our problem is the dedication to kicking the ball into our own net at every possible opportunity.

Now, do I think that that the boosters will provide antibody protection to omicron and cousins? Yes, they probably will. I don’t know for sure based on the actual data submitted, but it’s more likely than not based on how the vaccine performed already, and our understanding of they and the immune system will work. I expect side effects will be similar to the existing vaccines.

“Do I need a booster? Who needs a booster?” I hear you ask, Hypothetical Reader.

And here, again, I am going to be both frustrated and a little controversial.

We have the assays, the clinical assays, to measure antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants. We also have the active T-cell test we mentioned a few updates ago, to also measure what I believe is the more critical determinant of immune response, as well as the ability of the immune system to respond to the virus in ways the antibody test does not detect. Why, in the ever living hell, we are still not using them, not evaluating them, and not making recommendations for who needs a booster and who doesn’t based on those objective, science-based measures (which we use for MANY other vaccines already) escapes me. I really cannot think of a good reason to NOT be doing that–especially when raising the antibody titer to a certain number in mice is all that is needed to declare the booster effective, and “titer hits a number” in a handful of humans in prior studies was all that was needed to prove “efficacy” of the 3rd vaccine dose, and the rush to get everyone that third shot already.

Further, in the effort to prevent a fall wave, we are boosting against viral variants omicron, BA.4 and BA.5–whose waves have already come and gone over the last year. While it is likely that a future wave will be another variation of these viruses, it’s not immediately obvious that boosting against them will protect against a future wave. After all, when we guess with the flu vaccine, it’s by looking at epidemiologic data of what is already actively spreading in Asia at the start of their flu season, and picking the likely variants to get ahead of the actively spreading variants. Further, as we have discussed through these waves, everyone and literally their brother has caught omicron, BA.4 and/or BA.5 since last winter. We have discussed the multiple large studies showing that natural immunity, gained after surviving COVID from any of these variants, is at least as effective as the vaccine (if not more, as suggested by some studies) and is durable. The best protection appears to be in those who got the main series of vaccine, plus a natural infection (especially by one of the delta or later variants). So if you have the main series of vaccines and/or caught COVID during one of the omicron or BA.4/BA.5 waves, how much additional protection, if any, are you picking up from the booster?

I don’t think that is clear.

Again, that’s why using antibody and T-cell tests here would be a great idea which, again for reasons I cannot fathom, is not being entertained.

Now, that said, if you are at high risk of severe COVID, should you consider a booster? Yeah, probably. Discuss it with your actual doctor.

If you are not high risk, and especially if you have completed a vaccine series or already recovered from omicron/BA.4/BA.5, I won’t eat your lunch any which way you decide on boosters.

Finally, I think it worth mentioning in this section that after the BA.4/BA.5 waves in South Africa, even without a booster, they have had only minimal activity. In South Africa, as well as the other Southern Hemisphere bell weathers, spring is beginning to arrive and as we have documented, there was NO major winter COVID wave in the last few months.

–Still speaking of COVID vaccines, there was some online chatter suggesting a higher than expected rate of Ramsay Hunt syndrome (type 2). I am certain the vast majority of you are familiar with Ramsay Hunt syndrome (type 2), but for the handful perhaps less versed, this is shingles of the facial nerve. Shingles is reactivation of chickenpox virus, which, if you have caught chickenpox in the past (and the vast majority of the readership has) is still with you. You did NOT completely clearly the virus–it actually lurks in your nerve cells, which are one of the parts of your body that the immune system does not get full and complete access to. Because of this, the T-cells that would be ruthlessly running down the last of varicella zoster (chickenpox virus) in a crisp, professional game of “Among Us” at the highest stakes, don’t get access to the nerve cells where some of the virus will lurk. Ordinarily, this is no problem. Anytime the virus tries to leave the nerves, it gets immediately hammertimed back into obscurity by your still very primed immune system.

However, as some of you have learned already, as you age, your immune system has a tendency to forget that the Ol’ Zoster is still in there. And varicella will re-emerge as the shingles, a sharp, burning pain and rash with a bunch of small blisters in one dermatome (region of skin that a single nerve covers). Shingles is self-limited, though you do need to be careful around others, because you can absolutely spread chickenpox to them through your rash. There are some treatments available, and people of a certain maturity will be offered a shingles vaccine (which is really just a big ol’ booster of the chickenpox vaccine) to keep the immune system remembering that Ol’ Zoster is still around, and prevent shingles outbreaks before they occur. However, anything that suppresses or confuses your immune system enough can be juuuuust enough of a crack in the containment for shingles to break back out again.

Ramsay Hunt syndrome (type 2) is where shingles breaks out in the facial nerve specifically. That’s a rough place to get it, and acute pain, facial paralysis, and loss of taste along the front two thirds of the tongue are common along with the typical rash, which will be all up in the ear on the paralyzed side, plus the inside of your mouth. Pretty much a bad time for all. If that’s not bad enough, the VIII cranial nerve passes close by the VII (facial nerve), and will often join in the inflammation and shingles party, adding tinnitus and loss of balance to your symptoms.

Only if you’re lucky does the trigemminal nerve (cranial nerve V, which also passes by VII and VIII in part of your skull) get involved–that will just cause numbness.

Some of that will be permanent if not treated within about 72 hours with steroids and antiviral medication.

Fortunately, shingles outbreaks in the specific nerves that cause Ramsay Hunt type 2 are NOT at all common.

But the internets claim an increased incidence around the vaccines, so I did some digging. There was a case report of Ramsay Hunt type 2 following pretty close after vaccination that got blamed on the vaccine in Hong Kong. But that’s literally just one case. An absolutely massive study found that there was an increased risk of herpes zoster (shingles, but classic shingles, without Ramsay Hunt) after COVID itself in patients over 50. About 15% over baseline (age matched people with no known history of COVID when the study was performed). Interestingly, the rate was highest for those who had been hospitalized by COVID. All we can do is speculate about that. Since it’s age matched, the high risk of advanced maturity in COVID and shingles likely doesn’t explain it, but some of the other risk factors, like poor underlying immune function, obesity (which can be associated with diabetes or other perturbations of the immune system), or just exhaustion of the immune system after the “Ah-nold” reaction that got you hospitalized by COVID in the first place are all tempting hypotheses. Could be a combination of them, really.

Regardless, the important take away there is that COVID itself jacks up the rate of shingles, and so it may not be vaccine specific, as the internet rumors would have it.

We also have a giant retrospective safety study of one of the mRNA vaccines in Israel, which also looked at complications associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection to better compare risk/reward of vaccination. Interestingly, that did find about a 1.43 times increased odds risk of shingles with the vaccine, but not SARS-CoV-2 itself (no breakdown of Ramsay Hunt syndrome 2 cases, which either didn’t happen or were still super rare). As an aside, it also found the risk of myocarditis from the virus was about 14x higher than the myocarditis risk from the vaccine, so yet more evidence that hand wringing over myocarditis from the vaccine, especially in high risk groups, is a -little- overblown.

So I dunno. You have a big study showing that the virus itself, especially with hospitalization, can predispose to the Ol’ Zoster breaking containment and causing shingles. Outside of a case report Hong Kong, not much directly tying Ramsay Hunt to vaccine or SARS-CoV-2. And then you have a big study showing that the vaccine may have an increased risk, possibly over and above the elevated chance with the virus. Again, all we can do is speculate as to potential causes. We do know the dose of the vaccines are significant–we’ve covered the Moderna Malaise and Pfizer Flu as that second shot, in particular, goes into an immune system already loaded for bear. It’s possible that the Ah-nold reaction in severe COVID, or the “exuberant” immune response to the vaccine in the Moderna Malaise/Pfizer Flu, cause either temporary exhaustion of the immune system, or such hyperfocus on SARS-CoV-2 by the immune system that it “loses sight” of Ol’ Zoster for a moment. Sometimes, that’s all it takes, and boom–shingles.

But a temporary period of increased shingles risk post vaccine, and post SARS-CoV-2, does appear to be a thing.

Before you ask, Hypothetical Reader, yes, I did try to see if other vaccines are associated with windows of shingles risk, because again, maybe there is some weird window when you focus the immune system on some other viral threat. There is like nothing out there, so either doesn’t happen commonly enough for people to report it, or no one really paid attention to it until you had a massive vaccine campaign with a highly controversial vaccine that everyone hyperfocused on and blamed all the things on the vaccine until proven otherwise. Best I could do was dig up an long thread on a random website from like 2018 where someone asked “can flu shot lead to shingles?” and a lot of people said “yes”, either they or someone they know, having had it happen to them. All anecdote though, and worse, internet anecdote.

So maybe? Despite all the comments, clearly none of it was being reported to VAERS in 2018…

There are some odd risk factors for shingles that may support the idea that a big, sudden dose of inflammation may somehow give zoster an escape window. For example, the chance of shingles, while still not great, is higher in people with severe physical trauma in the previous week–especially head trauma for some odd reason.

Anyways. Now you know, and can march onto the internet this week with confidence in your new knowledge about shingles and the risk of it around both COVID and COVID vaccination.

Socioeconomic

–Easing our transition into socioeconomic policies, with CDC’s updated guidance, declining case numbers, and large amount of the population with natural immunity that studies have shown is pretty darn effective, it’s probably worth discussing when employers drop vaccine mandates, and/or when and how you start hiring back those who are unvaccinated, especially if they can show antibody and/or T-cell evidence of SARS-CoV-2 resistance from prior infection. We’re leaving the pandemic phase. The risk of the unvaccinated person, especially if a known recovered COVID positive from a prior wave kicking off a new wave that would overwhelm hospitals is low given the effective therapies we have. We cannot reasonably “unperson” them forever, and it is definitely debatable if these policies are still following the science, considering what the science has been and is currently showing about natural immunity from prior infection.

To say nothing of those rare individuals who through very rare allergies or other conditions really can’t be vaccinated anyways…

–More countries adding to the growing list of those with recent mass demonstrations over food and fuel prices. This time, including a few in Europe, like the Czech Republic. Farmer protests continue around the world. I’m not sure they’ve completely stopped in the Netherlands, for example, and there were solidarity efforts in Germany. India’s farmers have also re-ignited protests in the last week.

And it’s not even winter yet, folks.

–There has been a lot of debate over sufficiency of storage or accessing other supply sources in Europe in order to stave off a major energy crisis there this winter. I am sure you have seen similar headlines as I have, with every day, or at least every other day, an announcement of a major industrial company somewhere in Europe idling capacity. Over the weekend, several billion dollars in additional support was pledged by multiple European countries for their utility companies, which have been pushed to the brink by the high cost of inputs for energy generation in Europe. There was also plenty of talk of various price caps. Among the most ambitious was the idea of a price cap on Russian gas, which Putin responded to by flat out stating that if they cap the price of Russian gas, they will not get any Russian gas.

The idea here seems to be that Russia is dependent on selling that gas, and will need to sell it a price the rest of Europe will, banded together in solidarity, dictate as the primary customers of that gas. If Russia cannot find someone else willing to buy the gas at a different price, they will simply have to sell at whatever price the Europeans have capped it at, or else risk their entire economy and war effort falling off a cliff. Of course, the cap will be at a punitive level, lest Russia be able to maintain combat operations in the Ukraine with European money.

So that’s the idea, I guess. The question then becomes which one of them really has the leverage here. The already precipitous drop in Russian gas supplies to Europe has already hammered their market, with reduced availability and high cost already shuttering businesses (as we already mentioned) and putting angry citizens in the street over their crippling energy bills, which they have posted all over the internet. Meanwhile, Russia is already selling less gas to Europe and making more bank than ever. After all, if the price for each unit of gas is 10-20 fold higher, Russia can sell 5 times LESS gas and still make MORE money doing it. Which is what they have been doing. So you’re going to have set that new price cap fairly low before Putin gets impressed. It also presumes that no one else is willing to buy the gas, and/or at a higher price than the cap. China and India have been more than happy to pile up Russian gas–they have their own storage levels and just general availability to worry about. Granted, Russia cannot get as much gas and oil to the rest of the world as it can to Europe via the Nord Stream pipelines. Europe is indeed an important customer of Putin, and yes, it is undoubtedly true that one of Putin’s geopolitical chess moves has been to make sure that Europe relied heavily on Russian oil and gas for their marginal, on demand power needs, particularly as they eschewed coal, oil and natural gas exploration of their own (and were even shutting down nuclear) to move down the energy density scale to wind and solar. That way, at a critical moment, Putin could shut off the flow of that marginal, on demand power to create economic, and then social chaos, to force desired political ends on the continent. I would not be surprised if Russia was found to have been heavily funding some of the political and NGO movements to replace oil, gas and coal in the West, and Europe in particular.

After all, if war is politics by other means, and Sun Tzu said to defeat your opponent before you fight the war, the tone-honed strategy to do exactly that is to:

1. Wreck, or at least significantly impair, their economy
2. Destroy or degrade their social cohesion (if you have accomplished 1., this is easier)
3. Only now do you go to battle, having eroded their ability and will to resist.

And yes, there are some parallels you should find sobering when you reflect on China’s deliberate policy of running entire industries at a loss to deliberately gain controlling market share of key industries, like chips, batteries, antibiotics and rare earth metals AND their famous bot armies on social media, let alone the PRC military basically running Tik Tok–to say nothing of their donations to huge swaths of US colleges to promote specific, party-favorable views. And Russia of course has been accused multiple times of election meddling via social media campaigns.

On the flip side, look at the immediate US and allied response to the Ukraine invasion, which swiftly (pun intended) tried to throw the Russian economy into the ditch. And there have been plenty of hacking campaigns, social media campaigns, and of course, the famous fire sales and persona non grata’ing of all the Russian oligarchs to degrade social cohesion in Russia.

War never changes.

Regardless, this particular battle over European energy has been a long time coming, and the pandemic supply chain crunch, plus decades of deliberate choices by European politicians to move from carbon sources before really stress testing the ability of the replacement energy sources to cover a short fall of the total energy their society requires, have not made that battle an easy one for Europe.

So who blinks first over who needs the gas and oil more, the oil/gas sales dependent supplier or the “short the total energy the system needs and scrambling to reduce demand or replace the needed energy” buyers, will likely play out through the rest of the year.

–Main point for our purposes in this section is that there is a non-zero chance of Europe having insufficient supply to maintain its industry AND keep its citizens from revolting against high prices and/or blackouts. Especially if it’s an average or colder winter.

IF that non-zero chance hits though, and even partially hits, the risk is the same as that which we discussed in the early parts of the pandemic when China was first being locked down and other nations were isolating travel from China.

Namely, the problem will be that this energy crisis, if it happens, is taking place in Europe. The EU is not a small, nor insignificant trading block. It’s the second largest partner for China, for example, in terms of total imports/exports (other Asian and SE Asian nations are number one, when you lump them together). So if the industrial shutdowns already occurring in Europe get larger in number of affected companies, size of affected companies, and/or duration, the chance of the “missing widget” increases substantially in our still fairly globalized supply chains. While I think everyone has much more practice sourcing “missing widgets” after all the pandemic craziness, there will still be good chance of supply chain madness. A lot will depend on if, when and how deep the energy crisis in Europe turns out to be. “Missing widget” economic fallout (to say nothing of potential financial market volatility if the worst predictions for European energy come to pass) could start to happen as early as late this year or early next.

Much will literally depend on the weather.

However, you have two other big variables in play. Can Europe actually source enough energy from other sources to make up the difference? The UK’s new PM just laid out a plan for a sudden and comprehensive expansion of oil and gas exploration. While that will take some time to come online, that’s a European source of marginal, on demand energy that the continent needs. If other nations follow suit, particularly oil/gas flush ones like Norway, the increased availability of supply is what will bring the price down. As the price of electricity is pegged to the marginal source (natural gas and oil), the sticker shock in European utilities may drop, and definitely will drop as more oil/gas follows the high European prices offered to come online (as long as it is politically allowed to be drilled!). That may also help avert the non-zero disaster outcome here.

Finally, you may get a resolution of the Ukraine war, allowing political cover for some of the restrictions and embargoes on Russian oil/gas to be lifted and restore energy supply and price stability to Europe (and a decent part of the rest of the world too). Don’t look now, but in the last 24-36 hours, there is strong reason to suspect, despite the fog of war, that the Ukrainian Army has made a significant breakthrough in a counteroffensive in Kharkiv. The Russians are an obstinate bunch, and Putin literally cannot afford to lose this war (or be perceived to have lost this war), so a lot may still happen. But there is a non-zero chance for peace, and with peace would probably come some new balance in the supply of Russian oil and gas to Europe.

–Your think piece is related to the threat of European energy crisis this winter, and the moves now being made to avert it (or promote it, in the case of Russia). It’s behind a paywall, but comes with the following gem:

“Having learned from our mistakes, we now propose Doomberg’s Law of Antilogic™, under which the current slate of Western leaders can be counted on to select the worst possible path forward at every critical junction.”

We prefer the soccer “own goal” analogy, but Antilogic^TM works too. You can find the full piece here, which is recommended if you want to hear about European energy woes from someone more expert in energy and economics than me.

–The own goal/antilogic concept is worth revisiting as the US gracelessly glides into another election season, this one the mid-terms to control Congress. Each side is offering not much more than schismogenesis at the moment, and are increasingly focused on delegitimizing the other.

Avoid the temptation to join in the tribal party.

Again, ask yourself before (and during) those times the tribal bug gets you this election season:

“If the aliens landed today, who is the leader you will take them to?”

While it’s definitely not the leaders on the OTHER side, I dare say most of you cannot volunteer any leader in your own preferred tribe that you would feel comfortable trusting with first contact, and potentially the fate of the entire planet and human race. I would argue that the last several election seasons have been less about someone to vote for and more about voting against something you definitely don’t want. That definition of your own tribe via the negative, or “what their tribe is and thus my tribe is not“, is schismogenesis in action.

And it won’t get us out of this. With both tribes now having had a solid crack at just the pandemic, it’s clear the lesser of two bad choices is still a bad outcome. No matter which choice you happen to think is “lesser” (and we will all have an opinion on that).

Remember–our problem now is global. Everyone is facing the same inflation, energy availability issues, same crises of confidence in institutions that have been found wanting in the recent crucibles. The solutions to these will require everyone. Yes, even that tribe you don’t like much. If we play zero sum games now, we will all lose. Make no mistake about that. So as the gyre widens, to adopt the famous poem, if the center cannot hold, then we must create a new center, and hold that line.

Put another way, we will not stop the own goal, antilogic madness, or get to the other side we all want and deserve, until we have something and someone to vote for, not merely against.

I am encouraged that the readership, and those beyond it, I have spoken to or heard speak are increasingly recognizing the schsimogenic pull of news and social media. More and more will tell me that you’ll hear the same speech, or event, covered two entirely different ways–because they have stepped out of silos deliberately to hear the other coverage.

The center is real. The center exists. And it is larger than you probably think it is.

–I wonder if the haunted, harried eyes in the grocery store and in the car next to us at the stop light, that mysterious malaise, is not just the sense that things are slipping and nothing is stopping the decline. But I wonder now how many of them are worried that they are the last sane ones, the last in that middle, that still recognizes that most are not the extremes we are shown on the media, but that most people are genuinely good and want the good. The last that recognizes the humanity, even in those we disagree with, and would be willing to work to the compromises and balance we need to set things right again. If only we would talk to each other. Is the haunting and the harried because we are trapped in the sound of silence? Pandemic isolation left us unwilling to reach out, or convinced that it can only be MAGA extremists or Antifa anarchists around us, ready to scream their slogans the moment we try to reach out and reconnect with one another?

Are we really doomed to civil war? Or are all those worried faces really the middle, trying to hold, not realizing that many around them are trying to do the same?

I wonder…

–And also to be clear, the crisis of leadership is not unique to the West, despite the formalization of the law of Antilogic above. Everyone is kicking own goals right now, from China’s property market response and Zero COVID insanity, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (undoubtedly a long term negative on them, wasting people they cannot demographically afford to lose on top of other obvious consequences).

Everyone.

We will not be in this state forever though. Change, given this current situation, is absolutely underway. I re-iterate that this will be a decade where a century happens. And the opportunity is there for us to seize it, and make the other side better. But that is the only outcome possible; many are, for good and for ill, now possible.

Keep your courage. Keep your sanity. Keep your faith.

Yes, the leaders we have now are face down in the moment, unworthy of you, readers. But that which cannot continue eventually stops–and that includes the kind of leadership that own goals at every turn, per the law of Antilogic.

Catharsis will come, and is coming. But it may not be that Yeats’ famous center gives way so much as it is unleashed. I hope, perhaps naively, that will be the case. Just because that solution is not immediately obvious now doesn’t mean it’s not coming this decade…

–And couldn’t resist this. Sometimes, the universe has a wicked sense of humor.

This was the headline on August 22nd of this year:

By August 30th, the government of California was asking residents to raise thermostats, restrict large appliance usage, and, deliciously, not charge electric cars overnight at home as a heat wave stretched the electric grid to the breaking point. The timing, of course, was both not great–and couldn’t be better : )

–Your chances of catching coronavirus still exist. There is still a dull roar of circulation, mostly of omicron variants that resemble nasty colds. So your chances of catching coronavirus are any of your options below:

1. The chance that the anniversary of Jeffrey Epstein’s death in custody has come and passed, and there is still no word on investigation of any of the men (or women) in his black books, let alone arrests. This despite there clearly being customers for his underage sex trafficking ring, no?
2. The chance that Putin will announce gas flows to Europe will be shutdown in the near future because a necessary turbine has, unfortunately, fallen like an oligarch from a hospital window in Russia. Six times in a row. Is much mystery, comrade…
3. The chance that we had to end with some kind of song, right?

<Paladin>