Kevin Drum

I keep reading pieces claiming that the latest battle between Hamas and Israel is a watershed event. Nothing will ever be the same after this.

Huh? As near as I can tell, it was such a standard little war as to be almost boring. Hamas did what it always does, Israel did what it always does, and after a couple of weeks everyone pretends that their objectives have been met and agrees to a cease-fire. After that, things go back to exactly how they were before.

What am I missing here? When I say "the way things were before," what I mean is that (a) Israel controls everything utterly, and (b) every once in a while Hamas (or Hezbollah or some other Palestinian group) decides to lob a few thousand rockets in the general direction of Jerusalem in order to demonstrate that they still exist. The world condemns Israel for acting disproportionately, but Israel knows that no one is really serious about this and basically ignores it.

What exactly is different this time, aside from the fact that it happened over the past two weeks and we haven't forgotten about it yet?

Rep. Lauren Boebert went on TV—well, Real America's Voice, anyway—to claim that Texas hasn't had a single COVID-19 death since it lifted its mask mandate on March 2. Needless to say, it takes about 60 seconds to get the real data from the CDC:

Texas was heading steadily downward, but within 30 days of ending its mask mandate deaths from COVID-19 went back up. Total deaths since March 2 amount to a bit less than 4,000. And how is Texas doing now?

Texas is currently one of the worst states for COVID-19 mortality.

So why would Boebert say something so ridiculous? The best answer, I suppose, is that it's Lauren Boebert. What do you expect? But the other answer is that this is an example of Republicans literally being able to say anything. They know their audience will believe them, and they'll never be fact checked in any sense that will hurt them. So if you're going to make stuff up, why not go whole hog?

This is a common fiddleneck. I assume there must also be an uncommon fiddleneck, but for some reason I've never seen one.

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through May 19. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Here's a chart showing the daily administration of COVID-19 vaccine in the US:

You can see the problem. I'm not saying that vaccinations will follow the straight trendline I've shown. I'm only saying that if they do, we'll end up with a total of about 320 million jabs by the end of June. That's 160 million people fully vaccinated, or a bit less than 60% of the eligible population. That's not enough.

This is why the downturn in vaccinations is so dangerous. We have time to turn it around with lotteries or donuts or bottles of beer or whatever, but turn it around we must. That line needs to flatten out.

I know you've all been waiting on the edges of your seats for the results of the poll I put up last night, so here it is:

You guys are pretty convinced that Zoom meetings, working from home, and telemedicine are here to stay. Conversely, you're pretty skeptical about distance learning, the permanent end of handshaking, and the end of trade shows. Everybody loves trade shows, after all.

I'm probably more skeptical than most of you. I figure that things like working from home and holding more Zoom meetings will get a bump, but nothing huge, and the others will mostly just fade away. We'll see.

NOTE: Just a reminder that participants could vote for as many items as they agreed about, which is why the percentages add up to far more than 100%.

Yesterday we were told that President Biden was taking a "sharper tone" with Bibi Netanyahu and demanding a "significant de-escalation" in the Israeli bombing campaign against Gaza. Today Netanyahu told him to pound sand:

Nothing new here. When was the last time Israel actually did something to help out the United States? I'm sure that our intelligence services have a great relationship—they always do—but beyond that it's hard to think of anything.

This is a deserted cabin in the shadow of the Eastern Sierra between Mammoth Mountain and Mono Lake. It may be abandoned, but that doesn't mean it can't still be picturesque.

Europe is opening back up as long as you can show that you've been vaccinated against COVID-19:

The European Union agreed on Wednesday to reopen its borders to visitors who have been fully vaccinated with an approved shot....The bloc will accept visitors who have received full immunization using one of the shots approved by its own regulator or by the World Health Organization. That covers the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines. This would open the door to Americans, who have been receiving shots from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

All that's left is to come up with some way to prove that you've been vaccinated. But what could it be? You already need a passport to travel abroad, so I suppose it would be something like that: a "passport," but one that shows your vaccination status. Sort of a "vaccine passport," if you will. Someone ought to get to work on that.

Republicans are always droning on about the importance of local control, but their dedication to the cause always seems to waver as soon the locals start doing something they don't like:

Most government authorities in Texas will soon be prohibited from requiring people to wear masks, Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday....The executive order Mr. Abbott announced on Tuesday would prevent counties, cities, public health authorities and local government officials from requiring people to wear masks beginning on Friday. Violators could be fined $1,000.

So much for local governments being closer to their people and understanding their needs better than the one-size-fits-all bureaucrats back in the capital. But that was all just a sham from the beginning anyway, wasn't it?