Covid-19 Apocalypse Now

It looks like it's the calm before the Covid-19 storm here in the U.S. Omicron is coming! Omicron is just as infectious as Measles, heretofore the most-infectious disease known to mankind. 

The wave of Delta infections in central and northern Europe is finally waning, as represented on this graph by the Netherlands. Nevertheless, despite improved rates, the Dutch are going into immediate lockdown, because they expect Omicron to start hitting them very soon. In the UK, where Covid-19 rates have been unacceptably high all year, rates are suddenly accelerating, likely due to Omicron. 

It's astonishing how quickly Omicron slammed South Africa. Exponential growth is fearsome to behold! As recently as Thanksgiving, there was very little Covid-19 in all of South Africa. Now, South Africa Covid-19 rates have climbed as high as those in the United States. Suddenly, everyone sickened! 

The United States has been on a high but eerily-calm Covid-19 plateau for the past two weeks. If Omicron slams the U.S. as hard as people fear, things will deteriorate so fast that it will break the U.S. health care system, perhaps as soon as the end of January.

Update: Omicron is spreading with astonishing speed. At Thanksgiving it was beginning to spread from Johannesburg, South Africa. Last week, 70% of new cases in the U.S. were Omicron (in purple). By New Year’s, Delta variant will be essentially gone; thoroughly outcompeted by Omicron. Not even forest fires spread this fast.

Lucking Out With Rain This December

Such an erratic rainy season so far! Wetter than we usually get in a La Niña year. 

At the end of October, following the immense rainstorm of October 24th, Sacramento was a surreal 700% above average precipitation for the water year, which started October 1st. Then November was mostly dry, so by last weekend, we were only 190% above average. With the most recent rainfall, we are now 237% above average. We've already surpassed normal December rainfall amounts. 

There are more storms coming too! After a few days of sunshine, Dec. 21-22 will be rainy, as will Dec. 23-24, and Dec. 25-27. 

December will be very rainy, but we've got to bank the water we get, La Niña might kick us with drought again, the way she's kicking the Southwest right now.

Leonora Carrington The Lost Surrealist

Watching this BBC documentary. Lots of empathy for her.

 

Did Somebody Say Something?

I was walking behind a young man on the sidewalk. Bum calls out, “Hey, do you have any money?” Young man replies, “No, sorry.” Bum replies, “I wasn’t talking to you, but to the old man behind you.” (I affected deafness)

Belated RIP: Ken Young

This weekend, after about 35 years, I spoke to my graduate school officemate. We compared notes about the professors at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. So many have passed on! 

My Master's Degree advisor, Ken Young, passed away in 2018. Even though he lived in Petrolia, California, and ran in the Sacramento area, I never met him here.  I wrote a paper regarding equilibrium rainfall drop distributions under him. Many people cite that paper these days. We are still having an impact! I should see how our reputation is standing up these days.

I recall the first time I met Ken. I was a new graduate student.  I told him, "I understand you like to jog." His jaw dropped in shock.

"JOG????!!!!" he replied with overwhelming sarcasm. "JOG!!!!???? I AM A RUNNER! I RUN!" 

I stood corrected.

He had problems with injuries later in life.  I remember his difficulties with two of his Grand Canyon runs: running from the South Rim to the North Rim, and back, in one day.  Twice, he had knee issues on the very last leg of the runs. So hard!  (I'm amazed anyone thought to do that at all!)

Runner and statistician Ken Young, who practically single-handedly revolutionised the way road running is tracked, passed away on 3 February, aged 76. 

While working on his Ph.D at the University of Chicago, Ken joined the school’s track club where he met Ted Haydon, an assistant coach for the USA Olympic team. Haydon got Ken to help him with statistics for a handicap race which launched his lifelong passion for computer analysis of running data. He began to compare results from different distances to determine who the faster runners were and developed a model to predict race times. He visited libraries across the US and Canada to collect running data from their archives. In 1973 he founded the National Running Data Center.

Under Coach Haydon’s guidance Ken targeted particular records. In 1972 he succeeded in setting a world indoor marathon record of 2:41:29 in Chicago. Later that year, on an outdoor track, he set an American Records on separate occasions for 40 miles (4:08) and 50km (3:08).

Through his National Running Data Center he became the official record keeper of the USATF Long Distance Running Committee from 1979–1988. He also took a keen interest in the measurement and certification of running courses.

In the early 1990s these various interests coalesced in the publication of a statistics-heavy newsletter, The Analytical Distance Runner. 

In 2003 he banded together with other like-minded statisticians to establish the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) which maintains the website arrs.net. By 2016 the ARRS database included more than 1.1 million performances from 214,000 races. He maintained a system of ranking elite runners worldwide for head-to-head competition which race directors used to decide who to invite to their races. 

Over about a 40-year period he spent about 40 hours a week sorting through running data. “The world is full of so much chaos, and I’m a born planner, an organizer,” he said. “I try to make sense out of things and look for an underlying structure.”

Kentucky's Rand Paul and Thomas Massie Sure Have Balls For Asking For Disaster Aid For Kentucky

These two bastards have opposed disaster assistance for large hurricanes for the last decade if the storms focused their damage on blue areas: Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria - all of them! These GOP clowns treat disaster assistance as a red state piggy bank. It's time to smack them in the face! The hell with them!:

When former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey requested federal aid for Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Paul criticized Christie for having a "gimme, gimme, gimme," attitude. In 2017, the Senate passed a disaster relief bill for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, with Paul being one of 17 senators — all Republicans — who voted No. Paul, speaking against the bill, said "People here will say they have great compassion and they want to help the people of Puerto Rico, the people of Texas, and the people of Florida. But notice they have great compassion with somebody else's money." Aaron Rupar, former journalist at Vox, wrote on Twitter, "Turns out, @RandPaul, that people can't bootstrap their way out of a storm destroying their house."

Still Plenty of Toilet Paper

Today in the pandemic, I’m finally nearing the end of the bundle of paper towels I bought in the frantic early days of March and April, 2020. Still, haven’t made much of a dent in the bundles of toilet paper purchased at the same time. I’ll have to think of something.

Bagpipes in the Cathedral

Steady Rain Today

2.36 inches, and counting! Rainfall since October 1st jumped from about 189% above average, to 237%, and climbing. And there is more coming too, over the next week. Such an erratic season, so far!

Green Valley Theater Company's VerteFée Cabaret's Merry Krampusnacht - December 11, 2021