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I Never Thought I’d Be Quoting George W. Bush…

…but here we are.

It was a stark reminder of how the Grand Old Party has corrupted itself over the past 20 years: from Bush to Trump, from a party of conservatism to a violent faction that refuses to honor free and fair elections and the rule of law.” ~ George W. Bush, 9/11 speech

There are Democrats, but there are no Republicans. After January6, there are only ex-Republicans and Fascists.

The policies of George W. Bush and his corrupt administration were the reason I started blogging back in 2004.

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This is Heartbreaking

And bordering on genocide.

From arstechnica:

COVID-19 cases in children have risen 30-fold since late June and are now at record highs, with nearly 500,000 new child cases reported in the past two weeks, according to the latest data released by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday. Pediatric cases have “increased exponentially,” the AAP said in a statement.

The rise coincides with a dramatic surge in overall COVID-19 transmission driven by the hypertransmissible delta variant. But with more adults vaccinated, children are getting hit harder in this wave than ever before, and they make up a larger and larger share of the cases.

At this point, the US has recorded 5.3 million cumulative cases in children, accounting for 15.5 percent of total cases in the pandemic. That percentage has risen steadily during the current surge, up from 14.2 percent at the end of June.

By late June, child cases had steeply declined and reached a low point, with children making up just about 10 percent of the total cases during the week ending on June 24. Amid the delta surge, that weekly percentage shot up. In the week ending on September 9, children made up 29 percent of cases. For context, children (those under age 18) only make up 22.2 percent of the US population.

With the growing share of cases, raw totals in children are now at their highest levels ever in the pandemic. In the week ending on September 9, the US tallied 243,373 pediatric cases (from 49 states, plus New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam). That weekly tally is second only to the previous week, ending on September 2, in which states reported 251,781 pediatric cases.

Protecting children

Before the delta surge, the highest weekly tally was set in the week ending on January 14, in which there were 211,466 cases in children. From there, cases fell to a low of 8,447 in the week ending on June 24. The current weekly cases are a 30-fold jump from that point.

About half of the country’s pediatric cases reported in the past two weeks have been tallied in Southern states, where many areas are undervaccinated and transmission has been extremely high.

Children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible for vaccination. However, data continues to show that vaccinating older children and adults around young children can protect them from infection. States with higher vaccination coverage overall have generally seen fewer cases, emergency visits, and hospitalizations involving children during the current surge.

US officials expect that vaccines will become available for children ages 5 to 11 sometime between the end of October and the end of the year. Vaccines for children ages 6 months to 5 years will follow.

One bright spot among the current data is that child hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 remain relatively low. Among the 24 states that report pediatric hospitalizations, pediatric hospitalizations ranged from 1.6 percent to 4 percent of total COVID hospitalizations over the entire pandemic. And according to mortality data from 45 states, children have made up zero percent to 0.27 percent of all COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic. Seven states have reported no deaths in children throughout the pandemic.

“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children,” the AAP notes. “However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

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Thought of the Day

Time travel stories often focus on the need to avoid changing history if you traveled into the past, but if you went further back than just a few thousand years ago, you couldn’t avoid it. The moment you arrived you’d be breathing out bacteria and viruses which didn’t belong in that era and to which nothing at the time had any natural resistance. Just by doing that, you’d probably trigger ecological changes which would have discernible effects on all of subsequent history. ~ Infidel753

 

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I Dreamt of Aquariums Last Night

It actually started out with watering a plant. It was one of those plants that was rooted in a bowl of water. I was going to top off the bowl when I saw something moving among the rocks and roots. Upon closer examination it was a small crab. “Where did that come from?” As I continued to look, fish and other small creatures appeared. I thought I couldn’t top off the water without messing up the water chemistry.

At some point this bowl transformed into a small fish tank and the angel fish that Ben had bought last year (now living at my sister’s) appeared. “I thought we moved him!” and at the same time realized I really needed to move these animals into something bigger.

While in real life I haven’t set my aquarium back up since the fire (and was discussing with Ben my desire to just get rid of it altogether last week) in the dream I had two large aquariums, both brightly lit with deep blue backgrounds. The smaller one was nearly empty, so I elected to put these “new” creatures in  there. At first the larger one looked barren of life as well, but once I transferred the fish from the plant bowl/tank into the small aquarium, dozens of fish came out of hiding in the larger tank, including a beautiful blue, white and yellow angel fish. (I cried upon seeing him, as I thought I’d lost him forever.)

(I just tried finding a picture online of something similar, but of course this being a dream creature, nothing could be found; apparently that color combination doesn’t exist in the freshwater species.)

I determined long ago that when aquariums appear in my dreams, they are indicative of the general state of my mental and emotional health. When I’ve dreamt of dirty and decrepit tanks, the overwhelming emotion I feel is sadness and guilt that I’ve ignored them for so long.

You would think that after the last eighteen months, aquariums in my dreams would be a disaster, but it was just the opposite. First new growth appeared in an unlikely location and I transferred it into obviously clean and healthy tanks that had been there all along.

I think the meaning is obvious. I know I woke from that dream with a smile on my face.

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All I Can Think Of…

…are the people who threw themselves out of open, broken windows rather than be burned or crushed by the building falling around them.

It seemed we were one people for weeks and months following the attack. Now we can’t even unite in the simplest of ways to prevent our fellow citizens from perishing.

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