Saturday, November 28, 2020

Weird as Sh*t



We are passing through a strange electoral purgatory, between this 'lame duck' administration's rejection and the next's inauguration, with only some vague assurance that we aren't going back to hell. And that's okay; it's better than where we were. There is some consolation in watching the demons eat their own while Trump is holed up in the White House, emerging only occasionally to play a round of golf. Trump's legal team is still recovering from a lost appeal in Pennsylvania on Friday, with Judge Stephanos Bibas writing: 
Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.
Judge Bibas is a Trump appointee. It is a time of thanksgiving, then.

On Thursday, we were able to sit down to an intimate, pandemic-appropriate Thanksgiving almoço with friends here in the Lisbon area. Couples sat in pairs at tables set two meters apart, but it was a true gift to share turkey, stuffing, and Donna's apple pie. The conversation did inevitably turn to the election, and I found myself alone, arguing that the system functioned pretty much as designed. Specifically, the group expressed horror and incredulity at the narrow victory, a sign of new and shocking problems in the system. Like Judge Bibas in Pennsylvania, there was only 'that one guy' in Michigan, marshaling his integrity, standing between us and electoral damnation. I felt like the Dave Chapelle character on SNL's 2016 'Election Night' skit, wondering at the confusion and anxiety. The system has always been extremely fragile, but maybe you need the right perspective or life experience to achieve clarity.
We must not attempt to exercise power we simply don’t have. As John Adams once said, 'We are a government of laws, not men.' This board needs to adhere to that principle here today. This board must do its part to uphold the rule of law and comply with our legal duty to certify this election. (Aaron Van Langevelde, Republican member of Michigan’s board of state canvassers, calls for the certification of Michigan's election on Monday, Nov. 23rd; soon after the certification, the GSA issued a letter to ascertain the winner, and start the formal transition process)
The system is unfair, it's racist, it's easily manipulated, it's super-rickety and often barely hangs together. The system has always relied on 'that one guy', and we each get our turn. I think it's always been that way. We may work as hard as we can to fix it, but in the end, we have to trust and let it play out.

I will admit, for argument sake, that the system has never been attacked by a president intent on destroying it rather than admitting defeat – but it seems to be holding up to that as well. On the other hand, none of these situations help instill confidence either. The system may have let us down in the past, but it's hard to say that it's ever broken down.


On Tuesday, following the GSA's ascertainment, the Dow Jones Index closed over thirty-thousand points, an historic high. Trump popped into a press briefing to wildly claim credit. His appearance lasted all of a minute, and as he shuffled from the podium without taking questions, a reporter could be heard to say, "Well, that was weird as shit."

My internal VCR fast-rewinds to Trump's inauguration: in defeat, Hillary Clinton is compelled to attend, sits in the VIP section next to President George W. Bush, and listens to Trump's divisive 'America First' speech. Clinton tells the story of Bush's reaction to the speech, "Well, that was some weird shit."

We end where we started, perfect bookends to Trump's presidency.

The next circle in our departure from the Inferno is Georgia's senate runoff elections. Republicans Loeffler and Perdue are easily two of the worst, self-serving senators in Washington. Trump is headed to Georgia next week to hold rallies. At this point who knows what he's going to say – if Georgia's elections are 'rigged' what's the point of holding another? Many of his supporters are attacking Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who now plays the part of  'that one guy'. Loeffler and Perdue have called for Raffensperger's resignation. Other Trump supporters are self-destructively demanding an election boycott. Raffensperger pens a heartfelt op-ed in USA Today:
By all accounts, Georgia had a wildly successful and smooth election. We finally defeated voting lines and put behind us Fulton County’s now notorious reputation for disastrous elections. This should be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost — my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him.
In Dante's Purgatorio, we meet a cast of characters as we climb to Paradiso. It is a catalog of sin: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust. How else to consider Trump and his minions as we leave him and them in the lower circles? Responding to this general question on Quora, Nate White, a copy-writer from the UK, sums him up:
He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
Amen.


Meanwhile, the pandemic rages on. The global cases total passed sixty million on Tuesday. The US passed thirteen million on Wednesday. Portugal is racing towards three hundred thousand cases, but the rate is, at least for now, slowing. The 'second wave' has been very difficult everywhere. Though Georgia has managed better during this recent surge, Trump's tightly-packed, mask-free, shout-fest rallies have consistently turned into super-spreader events. Trump is headed there next week.

cases: 62,408,411 global • 13,558,726 USA • 290,706 Portugal
deaths: 1,455,807 global • 271,942 USA • 4,363 Portugal

UPDATE (December 1): I've found a prescient and concise history of 'weird sh*t in America' written by Richard Hofstadter, recently re-posted on the Harper's Magazine web site – from November 1964 (replace Roosevelt’s New Deal with Obamacare, etc):
The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism.

The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.

Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it was infiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.
Today is Restauração da Independência in Portugal, celebrating the acclamation of the Duke of Bragança as Dom João IV in 1640, and the end of the Iberian Union.

Also today, the US records over fourteen million (14,039,630) cases of COVID-19; the world records over sixty-four million (64,026,023). Portugal records over three hundred thousand cases (2,401 new, 300,462 total cases). Since October 9th, Portugal has consistently posted higher case numbers than Georgia – except today, Georgia posts nearly five thousand (4,842 new, 476,405 total cases).

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Data Reset

 
corrected graphs, COVID-19 case totals in Georgia (left) and Portugal (right)

I've been diligently entering data from Worldometers' COVID-19 database into my own graphs. Over the last few days things have gotten wonky with the data. Actually, I should explain that that the data from Georgia's DPH web site has always been a little wonky – the DPH would often increment the running total for cases, and also provide a different number of 'new daily cases' than mathematics would allow.
The cases reported today may not equal the difference in total cases between yesterday and today because previously reported cases may be removed as duplicate reports are corrected or may be reclassified as additional information is collected during case investigation.
For quite a while, Worldometer's data values tracked with the DPH's data, but a week or two ago there was some kind of correction. I assume that Worldometer applied corrected values for the 'confirmed cases' (Georgia's 'official' case number), by adding the 'antigen positive' cases to the running total – all the way back to March 12th, when the variance was just one. I'm not sure I've seen any other data source distiguish the 'antigen positive' cases without including them to their running total.

At first, the discrepancy was not too troubling, the graphs were vey similar. But recently, the two datasets grew very far apart, and I felt I had to update my own dataset. For example, for November 16th, Worldometer has a running total for cases of 426,236, versus the Georgia DPH total of 387,930, and death totals are 8,967 vs 8,471 (seven-day averages are 2,700.4 versus 1,964.1).

I've made the animated GIFs above to illustrate the change in the Georgia data (on the left). The light blue is the 'new daily cases' value, the red is the seven-day average, the yellow is the fourteen-day average. Note that the graphs are very similar, but that the 'corrected' graph is just slightly 'taller'. But for the more recent values, the trend lines show a much steeper rise, which is why I felt it was necessary to make the update. This also means I can continue to use the same data source (Worldometer) for the two locations.

Then, yesterday, Portugal also reported a running total that was much higher than 'new daily cases' number would mathematically allow. Evidently, there was some kind of "a change in the data analysis system". This required small adjustments all the way back to March 6th. In this case the two graphs are nearly identical except for a very slight vertical shift, especially pronounced during the early weeks – adjustments were spread over the entire time line, so the GIF (on the right) animation is hardly noticeable. Portugal's 'autumn spike' seems to have reached it's zenith (I truly hope), and I've adjusted the Y-axis accordingly in all the graphs.


cases: 55,356,898 global • 11,538,280 USA • 225,672 Portugal
deaths: 1,331,858 global • 252,652 USA • 3,472 Portugal

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Fair Fight

It's Tuesday, one week after Election Day. This is what has happened since the election was called on Saturday:

There's more to do. No reason we can't celebrate and make good trouble at the same time. Stacey Abram's Fair Fight initiative has setup a donation page to help get out the vote for Rev Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff: gasenate.com.

Henry Winkler wins the quarantine with his Fauci pillow – it's time for aviators and ice cream.

cases: 51,406,046 global • 10,428,517 USA • 187,237 Portugal
deaths: 1,271,833 global • 244,519 USA • 3,021 Portugal

Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Election Day


Election Day has arrived. To help us get though it, here are Stephen Colbert and John Oliver being smart, thoughtful, and funny. It's just what we needed – and there's a part two.

Here are some of the other things I'm watching and reading:

UPDATE: It's late now, and the votes are still being counted. Of course, our clocks are way ahead, so it'll still be 'today' on the west coast when I wake up tomorrow. I have the same anxious feeling I had in 2016.

Portugal's COVID-19 cases seven-day average's sharp rise seems to have hit a short-term peak, yesterday, at just over thirty-six hundred (3,673.4). This nearly matches the peak hit by Georgia in mid-July (3,745.4). The Portuguese government has imposed new 'second lockdown' restrictions to try to get the numbers down. Today, Portugal's current COVID-19 totals are 149,443 cases and 2,635 deaths; Georgia's totals are 364,589 cases and 8,029 deaths.

GA vs PT COVID-19 cases 7-day ave, Nov 3 GA vs PT COVID-19 cases 7-day ave, Nov 4
GA vs PT COVID-19 cases 7-day ave, Nov 3 – GA vs PT COVID-19 cases 7-day ave, Nov 4

cases: 47,807,587 global • 9,684,894 USA • 149,443 Portugal
deaths: 1,218,982 global • 238,542 USA • 2,635 Portugal

UPDATE 2 (November 4): One day later, and we still don't have a definitive answer. Biden holds a 248 to 214 electoral vote lead. He also hold leads in Nevada (6 votes) and Michigan (16 votes) – if those leads hold, he will reach the 270 vote threshold and win the presidency by the slimmest of margins, just two votes. It looks like the Senate will remain majority Republican, so there will likely be 'divided government'.

Due to some kind of lab backlog in the north today, Portugal reports an astonishing 7,497 new COVID-19 cases – by far the highest number reported during the pandemic. The seven-day average for Portugal is up to 4,078.3; Georgia's is up to 1,632.4. I've added today's graph next to yesterday's, above.

UPDATE 3 (November 5): Wake up, shower, have a coffee – peek at the iPad. Dammit! still no certainty. It's 10AM in Lisbon, 5AM on the US east coast (Lisbon is on GMT). Most news channels now show Michigan as solid blue, and seem to have it down to Nevada, where Biden leads by seventy-six hundred votes. Other outlets still have not called Arizona for Biden, where his lead is sixty-eight thousand votes.

Trump's lead in Pennsylvania has been shrinking all night because they are now counting the mail-in ballots. Only eighty-nine percent of the estimated total has been counted, and "the pollsters" are saying things look good for the Biden. Similarly in Georgia, Trump's lead is down to twenty-three thousand votes, about a half percent of the total. But the Secretary of State went home to sleep and we won't get another update until he returns to the ballot-counting facility.


UPDATE 4 (November 5): It's now about 7PM here; 2PM in the US east coast. Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas), won't finish counting the ballots they have until Saturday or Sunday (the deadline for mail-in ballots in Nevada is Nov 12). Because of legal disputes and delays in starting the process, Pennsylvania will not have all their ballots counted until Friday, though the Secretary of State says the great majority may be counted later today – hopefully it's enough to call the election.

So much has happened, but nothing has changed.

UPDATE 5 (November 6): Wake Watch, Repeat. We are stuck in a shampoo-instruction-loop on Groundhog Day. It's just after 7AM (not yet midnight on the US west coast). We stayed up to see if Pennsylvania would report significant numbers (it didn't). Then we caught Trump's unhinged press briefing, making public accusations of "fraud, illegal votes, shenanigans". Here's where the vote difference stands in the four key states:
  • Pennsylvania: Trump's lead is 18,229 votes
  • Georgia: Trump's lead is 665 votes
  • Nevada: Biden's lead is 11,438 votes
  • Arizona: Biden's lead is 47,052 votes

UPDATE 6 (Nov 6, 9:30AM): CNN reports that Biden has taken the lead in Georgia by 917 votes. There are on the order of ten thousand more votes to count. As more Democratic 'mail-in' votes have been added in Georgia, it appears that both of the state's senate races will go to run-off elections in January.

UPDATE 7 (Nov 6, 2:00PM): CNN reports that Biden has taken the lead in Pennsylvania by 5,587 votes.

UPDATE 8 (Nov 6, 11:00PM): Here's where the vote difference stands in the four key states:
  • Pennsylvania: Biden's lead is 14,923 votes
  • Georgia: Biden's lead is 4,175 votes
  • Nevada: Biden's lead is 22,657 votes
  • Arizona: Biden's lead is 39,070 votes

UPDATE 9 (Nov 7, 10:00AM): Here's where the vote difference stands in the four key states:
  • Pennsylvania: Biden's lead is 28,833 votes
  • Georgia: Biden's lead is 7,248 votes
  • Nevada: Biden's lead is 22,657 votes
  • Arizona: Biden's lead is 29,861 votes

UPDATE 10 (Nov 7, 4:23PM): CNN calls Pennsylvania and the election for Biden, and now I can exhale. I'm watching Van Jones' emotional response. Here's where the vote difference stands in the four key states:
  • Pennsylvania: Biden's lead is 34,414 votes
  • Georgia: Biden's lead is 7,248 votes
  • Nevada: Biden's lead is 22,657 votes
  • Arizona: Biden's lead is 20,573 votes

Also today, the US passes ten million cases of COVID-19; the world will soon pass fifty million cases. Portugal's seven-day average for new cases is over forty-six hundred.

cases: 49,940,508 global • 10,078,235 USA • 173,540 Portugal
deaths: 1,252,843 global • 242,414 USA • 2,848 Portugal