He and She: Kayakitiyak

Posted on May 19, 2021 by Amoeba

She had prepared hash for dinner, and, as usual, He was making a hash of it.

He: [sets a black peppercorn to one side of his plate]

She: “Hey! You’re leaving out the best part! If you don’t want that, I’ll eat it!”

He: “That peppercorn is the size of a baseball! Bite into that, if you don’t break your teeth doing it, and all you’ll taste is pepper for a week!”

She: “Not. They’re soft, you know, after two days in the crockpot with the corned beef. And mild, too, most of the flavor’s in the hash. Just enough left for a nice burst when you bite into one. Like those coriander seeds you’re ignoring. Pop like caviar, they do, with a pop of flavor.”

He: “Right. The pop of flavor that comes as the plant’s trying to kill you. I keep saying, one of these days the vegetables are going to catch on to what the vegan movement means to them, and they’re not going to be happy. And when you make the world’s champions at chemical warfare mad at you, look out!”

She: “They’re just jealous that they don’t get planted, fed, watered, weeded, and debugged like the good plants do. Not to mention the conversations they get to have with us.”

He: “You mean the baby talk they have to endure?”

She [ignoring him]: “Are you just going to let those delicious coriander seeds lie there?”

He: “And what have they done to you so that you feel compelled to publicly question their veracity? They have feelings, you know. They have doubts. Questions. And they’re not coriander seeds.”

She: “They aren’t?”

He: “They are not. They’re cori-but-er seeds.”

She: “[…] I suppose they’re related to cori-or-er seeds.”

He: “And cori-so-er seeds.”

She: “I will not have another sow-er in this house. Or a sew-er either. There’s not enough room in the garden, and not enough space in the crafting room.”

He: “So you admit that your fabric stash is too big?”

She [ignoring him again]: “So, I wonder where those cori-or-er seeds are taking that canoe.”

He: “They’re taking a canoe nowhere with oars. You guide a canoe with paddles.”

She: “Are we going to have a row over this?!?”

He: “[…] More like a kayakitiyak.”

She: “Don’t talk back?”

He: “I don’t think so. I’d wonder who you were and what you’d done with my lady.”

She: “Aw. Thanks to that, I might even forgive you your mistreatment of coriander.”

He: “You might? Do I have to worry about cori-if-er now?”

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Amoeba’s Lorica: How Dense Is Your State?

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Amoeba

No. Not <= that kind of dense. Though Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba is entirely too aware of how much of that is going around.

This => kind of dense is what YFNA means. Though you may be forgiven, dear reader, if you’ve forgotten what a crowd looks like in the time of COVID. Keep your distance, foul leper unclean.

But, social distancing or no social distancing, there’s no concealing the fact that there’s a crowd of people in the United States of America in the year 2021 CE. In case you missed it, the USA is currently the third most populous nation on Earth, squeezing more than 300 million people against those border walls that are kinda sorta still getting built, maybe. Only China and India, with nearly 1.5 billion (with a B) people each, have got more human mouths to feed, and spew carbon dioxide, than Murica has got. 

So how crowded is that, really? And, what does it matter? After all, in an earlier exercise, YFNA found that density – of either kind – hasn’t mattered a whole lot when it comes to trying to explain where and how SARS-CoV-2 is distributed across the USA.

Turns out that China, the most populous nation in the world, only ranks 58th in population density. Italy, to name one, packs in more peeps per square mile than China does. (No one seems to have attempted calculations of population density per woke mile in any jurisdiction, a piece of potentially significant information lacking from discussions of diversity and inclusion.)

India, no. 2 in total numbers of people, is only the 19th-most densely populated country, though its neighbor Bangladesh, once part of India, ranks 6th and is the most densely populated nation that is not a geographically tiny city-state like Monaco or Singapore.

If you were born in the USA, Bruce? You live in the 145th most densely populated nation, and there are only 194 nations on the list. How the hell, with all that wide-open space, could COVID-19 have ever gotten established here? People must have wanted the government to expand unemployment benefits that badly. 

So, YFNA was contemplating all this, as usual while he was supposed to be doing something else, and he realized (it had something to do with a waking nightmare involving a high school history teacher, back when elephants had fur) that the USA is a union of states. What if each state were counted as an independent nation? How would each stack up, in terms of population density, against the sovereign nations of the world? 

Behold, the table. Clicking/tapping on it should make it bigger. (The ‘something else’ is still waiting to be done, of course.)

And, the takehomes.

  • Only New Jersey has more people in it per square mile than India.
  • Florida and China have similar population densities, and should be able to commiserate on the associated challenges. It is, however, hard to imagine a US state that is less likely than Florida to commiserate with China on anything.
  • New Hampshire, which tends to pride itself on its uniqueness, is the most average state in the Union in terms of world population density.
  • Missouri is near the geographic center of the USA and is also at the midpoint of the population density distribution among US states.
  • Nebraska is what Russia would be like if Russia were at a habitable latitude. (See Alaska, which was once part of Russia.) There is, to date, no evidence of Nebraskan interference in Russian elections.
  • There is no truth to the rumor that Canada will use its similar population density figures to justify annexation of the Dakotas.
  • There is also no truth to rumors that Genghis Khan Appreciation Societies have sprung up in Wyoming, though downloads of songs by The HU may have increased. The state is being closely watched for signs of unrest or aspirations of world conquest.

Mind you, all the USA’s wide-open spaces haven’t prevented it from ranking 10th (of 22o countries and territories) in the total number of COVID-19 cases per million people, between the start of the pandemic and 16 May 2021. For all of its recent (and intensively publicized) difficulties, India is only 108th on this list. China is no. 213. The differences can only be attributed to population density.

The other kind.

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Amoeba’s Lorica: Meme-ories 33 (Centers for Disease Control and Propagation)

Posted on May 14, 2021 by Amoeba

Yesterday [13 May 2021], the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] effectively acknowledged it had fallen behind the scientific evidence: Even though that evidence has not changed in months, the C.D.C. overhauled its guidelines. It said fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in most settings, including crowded indoor gatherings.

The change sends a message: Vaccination means the end of the Covid crisis, for individuals and ultimately for society. If you’re vaccinated, Covid joins a long list of small risks that we have long accepted without upending our lives, like riding in a car, taking a swim or exposing ourselves to the common cold.

The announcement also sends a message to the unvaccinated (who, the C.D.C. emphasized, should continue wearing masks in most settings): Life is starting to return to normal, and a vaccine shot is your best protection against a deadly virus.

A health care CEO responded: “I’m ecstatic about this news! It’s evidence-based and it’s bold. I hope that the updated guidelines incentivize more people to get vaccinated.” – Morning Newsletter, The New York Times [edited]

WASHINGTON, DC (API*): [Breaking News] The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has closed its doors, effective immediately.

Visitors to the AAAS website discover that the site has been taken down, replaced by a splash screen announcing the closure, and that its home office in DC has been sold to lobbyists for the Keystone Pipeline and other fossil-fuel energy providers. A similar announcement has been posted to LinkedIn. All other social media accounts are dark, with no posted explanation.

A former AAAS staff member spoke with API on condition of anonymity. “The CDC announcement was the last straw”, she said, visibly angry.

“Any authentic scientist knows that ‘months’ of data amount to nothing. Especially given the piddling amounts of money given to the scientists to collect those data. And heaven help the scientists should those ‘months’ of data be in error. Do you have any idea how much it burns to discover that the very same environmentalists and environmental organizations that slammed nuclear power in favor of the continuation of fossil fuel energy consumption, and have slammed scientists for decades for daring to suggest that the nuclear energy risks were overstated, now are clamoring for nuclear energy as the safest option available in the context of the climate change that their activism has helped to bring about?!?

“For the CDC to suggest ‘an end to the Covid crisis’ when the data tell us that the daily increase in cases, and deaths, is at its highest level ever, is telling science to sit on it and spin. Oh right, most of those new cases are in India. That’s way over there, and dark people. We don’t care, now do we?

“Speaking of deaths. Three million of them, boo hoo. Does anybody bother to mention that those deaths have offset a whole two weeks of human population growth since the beginning of 2020? So that instead of having 125 million more people on the planet now than we did in January 2020, we now have ‘only’ 122 million? Covid-19 has always been a ‘small risk’ on the scale of global pandemics through history, and this has been clear to scientists from the get-go. But try saying anything about this, try putting this in the context of population biology. And see what thanks you get. So we shut down the world’s economy. Apparently, for nothing.

“And now we’ve set up badges to identify people who can safely be persecuted. And for why? To keep pharmaceutical companies committed to actually making medicines instead of fun pills? So their executives can continue to enjoy their personal Dreamliners? Have we learned nothing …?

“Never mind. We’ve finally recognized that greed, fear, and the Harvard Law dictate human behavior, and in such a world, science has no place, except as a slave and a target. We are shutting down, and we recommend that our membership, and others who have claimed the ‘scientist’ mantle, likewise shut down, and occupy themselves in activities that society values. Like dressing up as superheroes and going to the movies. And may Apollo protect you.”

The response to the AAAS closure has, to date, been silence. Among the few comments was one from a Venezuelan known only as “Chavez”. “The very name of the AAAS”, Chavez tweeted, “has helped perpetuate the idea that the only peoples in the Americas who matter are those in the United States. Good riddance to the idea, and the organization.”

Law enforcement in DC has neither interfered with, or assisted, the departure of AAAS staff from their former headquarters, nor have they engaged with the building’s new owners and occupants. They are, however, closely watching the tipis and their occupants that have begun to appear on adjacent sidewalks.

* API: Amoeba Press International. All the News That’s Fit to Fake Print.

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