Augie Ray

Republicans say they want to protect women which is why they make an issue of transgender people in sports. But there are more men from one Cornell fraternity accused of rape than there are openly transgender women competing in all of professional sports. Let's talk about where the real headlines and political outrage should be focused!

Trump, who took out full page ads demanding the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers falsely accused of rape (and never apologized after they were exonerated) is speaking out because he's worried that the seven Cornell frat boys accused of rape (who are mostly white) "won't get a fair shake." I wonder what the difference is.

Speaking as someone who just visited and was bedazzled by Grand Teton National Park, let me ask, WHAT THE F*@& IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?! The Trump administration is considering the construction of a baseball park in Grand Teton National Park after being approached by Major League Baseball about hosting a game on public lands. Are you going to vote in six weeks? Are you asking everyone you know to vote? It's time to return sanity, ethics, and patriotism to the US. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/09/26/trump-officials-weigh-mlb-game-grand-teton-national-park/

Leaving notes on cars with Trump and MAGA bumper stickers can be fun!

Sunset at Lions Park in Moab.

We forget just how many lives #COVID19 took from us. I was just watching a video about the movie “That Thing You Do” (a favorite of mine), and the guy who wrote the famous song died of COVID complications in April 2020. Adam Schlesinger not only wrote That Thing You Do, but he was also a founding member of several bands (including Fountains of Wayne). Every time I hear someone say we “overreacted,” I wonder how short their memory was of how many we lost, particularly in 2020 to 2023.

“I will choose to remember the time before Trump. Because I believe in an America after Trump.”

• Hunter Biden

Trump promised peace, lower prices, lower taxes to get elected and protect himself. He hasn't delivered, and now Republicans continue to shield the president and other child predators from justice and ramifications. This can all change in less than 100 days if you vote for Democrats in November. This time, don't get distracted with fake promises of lower costs or peace or fake threats of immigrant caravans or evil socialists. Every election, every race, every Democrat. #VoteBlue 2/2

A month ago, I shared that I would no longer maintain my spreadsheet of studies on the long-term risks of #COVID19 infections. While I'm not maintaining it with the same rigor (I used to spend dozens of hours a week beating the bushes for studies), I am still adding studies I run across. My spreadsheet just surpassed 3,700 studies. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12VbMkvqUF9eSggJsdsFEjKs5x0ABxQJi5tvfzJIDd3U/edit?usp=sharing

Care facilities: “We care for people.” Me: “Then you'll require workers to get vaccinated?” Facilities: “We don't care that much.” STUDY of #COVID19 long-term care facilities: “A 10% relative increase in staff vaccination coverage was associated with 2.7 fewer resident infections per 100 beds... The median relative change in vaccination coverage (between (June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2024)) was -15% for residents and -53% for staff. “ https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(26)00615-2/abstract

Being human means having often contradictory values & beliefs. One scientist in Europe regularly posts interesting COVID studies, complaining people aren't listening. He also occasionally posts racist tweets about immigrants & mocks climate science. Another scientist I follow, who has suggested care to prevent spreading infections, just bragged he bought a huge SUV. (I checked—it gets less than 20 mpg; I hope he was hacked.) Humans can be smart and caring on one topic and a jerk on another.

STUDY: "A fourth vaccine dose was associated with a decreased risk of being diagnosed with post #COVID19 condition, with a vaccine effectiveness of 31%." A fourth vaccine dose in those with risk factors for severe acute COVID-19 had a "vaccine effectiveness of 38% for the fourth dose against post COVID-19 condition." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(26)00468-2/fulltext

Everyone but MAGA knows Trump is making the US weaker, less safe, and less powerful. A Chinese think tank “published an assessment titled 'Thank Trump,' which wryly hailed his efforts to hasten the 'twilight of an empire,' by undermining America’s alliances, civil service, scientific institutions, and democratic credibility. In the past two years, the international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly forty points… China now rates higher than the U.S.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/08/10/the-future-made-in-china

Something is happening in Anchorage with #COVID19. COVID has exploded an incredible level of 10,450 PMMoV. I'd say this might be an error, but the sewershed has reported 3 consecutive levels with huge increases. If this is true, it suggests 1 in 45 or more is infectious in that city. This would be one of the 5 highest readings ever reported on WastewaterSCAN in any sewershed. It is 12x higher than any other sewershed at present.

Leaders of the Democrat Party: We need to listen to Independents and Republicans, build bridges, and find compromise to unite our nation. Leaders of the GOP: Democrats are radicals who want to destroy America, and we must fight their hateful ideology. Americans: But both parties are the same!

Do any of my friends in Southeast Wisconsin have Long COVID or know someone who does? I've been contacted by a reporter interested in interviewing someone with LC in the Milwaukee area. Respond here or reach out privately if you know of someone who'd be interested in sharing.

STUDY good news: “We found that #COVID19 vaccination was protective against Long COVID, and we did not observe a significant waning of this protection within seven months after vaccination.” The not-so-good news: "Patients who were vaccinated had a lower risk of Long COVID (adjusted risk ratio 0.84) or mortality (adjusted risk ratio 0.83) than patients who were unvaccinated.” A good but not enormous 16% reduction in risk of LC. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(26)00266-5/fulltext

"In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that’s left is their utility. War is not monstrous for making corpses of men so much as it is for making machines of them. And woe to those who have no use in war except to feed the machines."

• Pierce Brown, from Morning Star, book 3 of the Red Rising series

STUDY: “Within the long COVID cohort, full COVID-19 vaccination was associated with a significantly greater small-vessel pulmonary blood volume and lobar airway volume compared with non-vaccinated individuals. “ The study needs further confirmation, but it suggests that #COVID19 vaccination has a potential protective effect on pulmonary structure and function. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3271/14/3/413

Imagine you go back in time to 1928 to 1933—a period during which ordinary Germans could have prevented Hitler from rising to power through elections, protests, and strikes—and you ask Germans why they didn't act. If they told you, “Well, I did not want to annoy my friends,” “It was inconvenient,” or “My boss might have seen and objected,” would you accept that? 1/6

Donald Trump is manipulating the stock market with his posts, and now he's selling early access to his posts so both he and Wall Street can profit from his manipulation. Meanwhile, he thinks your affordability crisis is a hoax. Unelect every Republican candidate this November! #VoteBluehttps://www.cnn.com/2026/07/16/business/truth-social-data-wall-street

Want to see the scariest thing on the US CDC's website right now?

Proposal: Rather than test the military for low testosterone, we test for low IQ. That way, we can get a new Secretary of Defense.

The US is still at quite low levels, although average #COVID19 in wastewater is up around 3x in recent weeks. I'd estimate the average prevalence is around 1 in 660 people in the US is infected, with WIDE variant in different areas. For example, in my hometown of Milwaukee, it's perhaps around 1 in 2,400. But based on WastwaterSCAN's data, I'd estimate in parts of Florida (around St. Petersburg) it might be as high as 1 in 140 are infected today.

This, believe it or not, is the caption on a photo on The Guardian website: “Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team.” https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2026/jul/19/spain-v-argentina-world-cup-2026-final-live-updates

This summer's #COVID19 seems poised to continue through August, with risks varying around the US. The Biofire Syndromic dashboard shows the positive rate rising steadily. The WastewaterSCAN dashboard shows the same. Regionally, WastewaterSCAN reports COVID in wastewater: Midwest (35 sewersheds): 45 PMMoV Northeast (25): 55 PMMoV South (62): 86 PMMoV West (74): 59 PMMoV Even within regions, risks are widely varied: In the west, Anchorage is at 489 PMMoV, San Jose at 98 & Sunnyvale at 27. 1/2

Conservatives ignoring science and putting their health at risk is nothing new. A new study found that, in the 2010s, “conservative Americans experienced worsening health and higher mortality than liberals.” Among the causes is “declining trust in medical professionals among right-leaning individuals, including lower willingness to seek care, follow clinical advice or believe in medication effectiveness, even for issues unrelated to COVID-19.” FAFO! https://www.fastcompany.com/91561329/widening-health-gap-between-liberals-and-conservatives

In a healthy body, we have a name for cells that grow without limit while starving everything around them: cancer. So what do we call it when one person's wealth grows from $180 million to more than $1 trillion in 25 years? That's how Elon Musk's wealth grew. Over the same period, the median net worth of American families grew roughly 45%. 1/2

The Republican mind: “I've been voting in ways that hurt other people all my life, but now it's hurting me, and that's not fair!”

We are in a (so far) small summer surge in the US. #COVID19 in wastewater has roughly tripled, but to put this into perspective, here is the chart of US sewersheds over the past 12 months. Our surge remains so mild you can barely see it relative to levels this past year.

Damn it, another favorite musician of mine has died. Too much talent going to waste. https://variety.com/2026/music/global/glen-hansard-dead-once-best-song-oscar-winner-1236823238/

I continue to track and share that this #COVID19 surge is quite uneven throughout the US, with the South, California, Hawaii, and Alaska as particular hotspots. (There are others, however.) The CDC only tracks COVID hospitalizations in 16 states. Currently, only four of them have rates of COVID hospitalization that are above average: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and California, which tracks closely with wastewater data. 1/2 https://www.cdc.gov/covid/php/covid-net/index.html

Does anyone here use #eBay to sell items and find it a successful and pleasant experience? I made my first listing in decades, and thus far, it's been a disaster. My first listing was taken down because sBay said I was trying to sell the item off the platform. I wasn't, and eBay ignored my appeal. So, I listed it a second time, and within one hour I have ZERO bids and TWO scam attempts. eBay seems like an absolute disaster—a platform run by people who don't care for scammers. Am I wrong?

For the first time in months, I've posted a more detailed update on #COVID19 risks in the US. The CDC's NWSS isn't showing much of a trend, but WastewaterSCAN suggests COVID has more than doubled in a month. It still looks less like a broad national surge than like a series of brief, localized surges, but risks are very uneven, with higher risks in parts of FL, TX, and CA than the rest of the nation. https://medium.com/@augieray_66704/covid-is-rising-for-the-first-time-in-2026-update-for-july-11-2026-9ea5a1e3cc2b

#COVID19 is presenting a very modest summer surge in the US. After rising from mid-June to early July, COVID has stopped rising the last two weeks (per WastewaterSCAN data). It still has not risen above the LOWEST point we'd seen in the prior four years. Strangely, WastewaterSCAN is now labeling COVID levels as “high,” even though it's (much) lower than ~90% of the last two years. 1/2

The crime is that the New York Post is not entitled to dress ten people up as “thousands” on a cover and brand 250 people who disagreed with them as fringe agitators. That's propaganda, not journalism. This is not new. From racial blackouts of Civil Rights coverage in the '50s and '60s, to welfare queen mythology in the '70s and '80s, to imaginary immigrant crime waves this decade, right-wing media has a long, consistent record of fabricating scale to manufacture fear. 4/4

Is this the reason we're seeing progressively lower surges the last 2.5 years? STUDY: #COVID19 was "doubling in fitness every 6 months from Jan 2021 to Jun 2022, " but slowed "to every 2.4 years from Jul 2022 to Dec 2025." This compares to seasonal influenza H3N2, which sustains a slower, steadier pace, doubling in fitness every 10.0 years. https://blab.github.io/fitness-flux/

STUDY: "The risk of long #COVID19 was not static but evolved with the pandemic; we observed a precipitous decline in incidence from the Wild-type/Alpha waves (>50%) to the Delta/Omicron waves (<21%), highlighting the profound impact of changing viral variants and vaccination on long-term outcomes." This study also, contrary to many other studies, found reinfection was not associated with LC risk. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9059/14/8/1662

Be careful out there. Unhealthy (red), very unhealthy (purple), and hazardous (burgundy) air now stretches from Minneapolis to NYC.

@crankylinuxuser@infosec.exchange If you can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans today, with all that is being destroyed, that says more about you than them.

An estimated one in eight cancer cases worldwide may be caused by infections. Do you get vaccinated? Are you more careful when COVID, flu or RSV are surging? It is so simple to reduce your risks of an acute infection and a chronic health problem. Why not do a bit more to take care? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-in-eight-new-cancers-are-likely-caused-by-infections-theres-an-easy-way-to-protect-yourself/

Meanwhile, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows—a group of 250 family members—condemned the campaign against Mamdani outright, calling out the “Islamophobic sentiment” behind it. The Post's response? They dismissed 250 grieving family members as a “far-left group… trying to silence 9/11 families.” Ten people have a right to their grievance, and yes, some underlying objections, are things people can legitimately find troubling. That's not the crime here. 3/4

Michigan Republican Jack Bergman was asked about Iran, and his response was, "I'm not going to blame Jimmy Carter, but..." Donald Trump started an expensive, costly, disasterous war, and the Republicans are blaming... the president who was in office FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. The GOP in 2026: No accountability, no care, no brains, and no ethics.

STUDY provides evidence that kids' birthday parties are a #COVID19 risk for grandparents. Not really a surprise, but interesting conclusions: "Grandparents had 9.9% higher hazard of SARS-CoV-2 infection during birthday risk windows. The risk was greater for birthdays of preschool-aged grandchildren (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.15) than during birthdays of school-aged grandchildren (AHR, 1.07)." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2851590

Then real journalists—the kind who don't work for outlets like Fox or the Post—checked the math. The Post's own article admitted the petition had collected barely 1,100 signatures, including “at least 300 victims' families.” Not thousands. Since then, the Post assigned a team of reporters to go find more objectors. Their haul, after all that effort: ten people. Ten. 2/4

Trump is losing. The US is losing. And the world is losing. We just had another week of Trump TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). He threatens Iran, they bomb some allies, US bases or boats passing through the Straits, and Trump backs down. Trump promised no endless wars (and a whole bunch of American morons believed him). Now, we're in an endless war. In three months, we can change all this, but only if you vote! #VoteBlue https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/world/middleeast/iran-trump-escalation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2lA.w0Hm.8YiVmueY5JRZ&smid=url-share

STUDY: "SARS-CoV-2 infection confers substantially greater and more sustained cardiovascular risk than BNT162b2 vaccination… consistent with a favorable cardiovascular risk-benefit profile for vaccination. SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with 3- to 5-fold increases in cardiovascular events during the acute phase… with risks persisting beyond nine months. BNT162b2 vaccination conferred 65-76% reductions in major adverse cardiovascular events." #COVID19https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-026-01528-3