Guten Abend, this week Germany from a *very* slow start overtook the laggard US in share of population fully vaccinated, 52% vs still 49%. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Italy's ahead of the US, Ireland's ahead of the US, Portugal's ahead of the US in the only medal count that matters this year. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Graphic comparing US states to EU countries. nytimes.com/interactive/20… Florida lags behind France. Ohio lags Greece. Missouri lags Lithuania. Arkansas lags Poland.
Remember that "Simpsons" sketch about soccer testing whether Portugal was the greatest nation on earth? Ha ha, right? Portugal has delivered at least one dose to 67% of its people, ahead of New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Oregon.
People sometimes use this platform to complain about negative personal experiences with services and officials. I'd like today to share a positive one about that most reviled category of person: a government bureaucrat. 1/x
I won't use names or identifying details, because I intuited the official bent some rules to help me out. I'll just say: I was facing a Canadian government agency, I required a particular form to be stamped, and I had screwed up the preconditions for getting the stamp. 2/x
I didn't have any good excuse for my screw up. I just had not paid enough attention to what I was supposed to do. And now the hammer blow was about to fall. The consequences were not exactly existential, but they were going to be fiendishly inconvenient. And worst of all ... 3/x
We've developed a technology of civilization that works so well that many no longer remember how it was built, or why, or the misery of human life beforehand.
Speaking from Wellington, Ontario, apologies for background bird noises
I was ready for birds, but instead got the roar of a lawn tractor directly under my porch at exactly the moment the item started. Embarrassed apologies to deafened @MSNBC engineers
Interesting in in @business about why China may never overtake US economically. Authors model scenarios. Note especially the yellow line, which accounts for studies that China has been overstating its growth numbers since at least 2010. US is green line bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Meanwhile, Thailand and Indonesia are gradually replacing Chinese COVID vaccine with newly abundant Western products after healthcare workers vaccinated with Sinovac caught COVID and died bbc.com/news/world-asi…