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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Oh, Lambda

Oh, Lambda

by | 208 Comments

This post is in: 

As you all know, I live in the town I grew up in, which includes the college I attended before dropping out and heading to the army for a couple years because, to put it as one of the Deans told me, “Maybe you just aren’t ready for college right now.” At any rate, every year at homecoming, because I live here, my house is the go to crash pad for my fraternity brothers and friends. Last year no one came, this year I was having three people, all of whom are responsible and vaccinated, and stated there would be no gatherings here. Last night, one of them cancelled because of this:

The Delta variant of the coronavirus overwhelmingly remains the dominant strain in the United States, but the Lambda variant has started getting attention in recent days.

Like the Delta variant, Lambda is highly infectious and thought to be more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus. Though much remains unknown about the strain, there have been some alarming characteristics detected by researchers.

At the moment, the Lambda variant has been mainly spreading through South America after first being identified in Peru in August 2020, but cases have been seen in Texas and South Carolina. Fewer than 700 cases of the Lambda variant have been sequenced in the U.S. out of more than 34 million coronavirus reported cases, according to one estimate. However, the U.S. has only sequenced a small amount of its cases, so the actual number of cases associated with the strain may be much higher.

Awesome. I may be cancelling altogether.

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Like the Delta variant, Lambda is highly infectious and thought to be more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus. 

    So is Delta. Slightly. Without numbers, this tells us very little.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    At this rate the COVID virus will have enough Greek letters to start several fraternities of its own.

  5. 5.

    Tony Jay

    @Jerzy Russian:

    It’s okay, then we’ll just move on to Egyptian hieroglyphics.

    I’m particulary looking forward to contracting Horned Viper B variant sometime next year.

  6. 6.

    Scout211

    I posted this article downstairs.  It has a bit more detail:

    https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/delta-infections-among-vaccinated-likely-contagious-lambda-variant-shows-vaccine-2021-08-02/

    The Lambda variant of the coronavirus, first identified in Peru and now spreading in South America, is highly infectious and more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus the emerged from Wuhan, China, Japanese researchers have found. In laboratory experiments, they found that three mutations in Lambda’s spike protein, known as RSYLTPGD246-253N, 260 L452Q and F490S, help it resist neutralization by vaccine-induced antibodies. Two additional mutations, T76I and L452Q, help make Lambda highly infectious, they found. In a paper posted on Wednesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review, the researchers warn that with Lambda being labeled a “Variant of Interest” by the World Health Organization, rather than a “Variant of Concern,” people might not realize it is a serious ongoing threat. Although it is not clear yet whether this variant is more dangerous than the Delta now threatening populations in many countries, senior researcher Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo believes “Lambda can be a potential threat to the human society.”
    Third mRNA dose may boost antibody quantity, but not quality
    Among fully vaccinated people who never had COVID-19, getting a third dose of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech or Moderna (MRNA.O) would likely increase levels of antibodies, but not antibodies that are better able to neutralize new virus variants, Rockefeller University researchers reported on Thursday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. They note that in COVID-19 survivors, the immune system’s antibodies evolve during the first year, becoming more potent and better able to resist new variants. In 32 volunteers who never had COVID-19, they found that antibodies induced by mRNA vaccines did evolve between the first and second shots. But five months later, vaccine-induced antibodies were “equivalent” to those seen after the second dose, with “little measurable improvement” in the antibodies’ ability to neutralize a broad variety of new variants, said coauthor Michel Nussenzweig. Therefore, he said, giving those individuals a third dose of the same vaccine would likely result in higher levels of antibodies that remain less effective against variants. “At the moment, the vaccine remains protective against serious infection,” Nussenzweig said. “Should we learn that efficacy is indeed waning for serious infection, which is not really the case to date,” then a booster dose of “whatever is available” might become appropriate, he added. Should an updated vaccine become available that protects against specific variants, “then that would be the choice.”

  8. 8.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: ​
      I can’t recall off the top of my head–were there any studies showing Delta to be more resistant to the vaccine in the lab?

  10. 10.

    Immanentize

    @Scout211: That sounds like how we develop annual flu vaccines — track developments and mutations then alter the annual shot design. But it is always backwards looking and variants can slip through that protection.

    Shots forever for Covid-19 it may be.

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    I would generally be skeptical of claims of vaccine resistance based on antibody interactions.  Antibodies are only one part of the immune response, so a partial reduction in antibody effectiveness is not worth a big freak out.  The gold standard will still be looking at infection numbers; that’s what really matters.

  12. 12.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I read a WaPo article that was (surprisingly) less panicky about the Lambda variant than a lot of what I’ve seen elsewhere. They quoted someone as saying that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are still likely to produce good protection from it (as they do against the Delta strain). It has been around for about as long as delta (maybe even longer) and has not spread nearly as quickly or as widely. It seems to me that Delta might just crowd it out.

    One thing about breakthrough infections that I find kind of frustrating is that I don’t think the vaccine clinical trials were testing the treatment group regularly – if they had been they wouldn’t have to say X% effective against symptomatic Covid. They could have said X% effective at preventing Covid infection. So…there may have been a substantial number of asymptomatic infections in the treatment groups in all those trials and those would be considered “breakthrough” infections in today’s parlance but since they were asymptomatic at the time the infection wasn’t identified. Basically it’s not clear that the vaccines are performing substantially worse against these variants because we don’t know how well they performed at preventing infection from the earlier strains. I’m happy to be corrected if I am wrong about how those trials went, and I would not be surprised if the vaccines are somewhat less effective against some of these variants but how much less effective…I think they’re still really good.

    At some point this thing has to hit a wall where it can’t get any more virulent or infectious, right? I kind of feel like more infectious and less deadly is the optimal survival path for it – if it develops into something that produces upper respiratory infections that don’t progress to the lungs (i.e. the common cold), we’ll all just be willing to live with the damn thing rather than develop further vaccine countermeasures.

  13. 13.

    Fair Economist

    I think people are overreacting to the threat of variants. ALL respiratory viruses are madly mutating to escape immunity, and they never manage more than partial escape. There are multiple immunity mechanisms, each relying on multiple antibodies collectively responding to all parts of an antigens surface, and to internal parts as well with T cell immunity. The current risk for Delta for a vaccinee is roughly that of the ordinary flu, (for real this time) and we have all gone on with our lives with that. Maybe refrain from public activities that require demasking like bars and restaurants, but otherwise we can go on with our lives.

    In the remote chance that COVID manages to develop immunity resistance that hundreds of respiratory viruses have been unable to in centuries of transmission, *then* we can up our countermeasures. For now I say mask up and carry on.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    Rather than using symbols that might not be supported by all browsers, once we pass omega maybe we should use the scheme for naming the ordinal numbers?  ω+1, ω+2, ω+3, and so on.

    The main advantage of this approach is that we can’t run out of new names. In fact what with the COVID genome being only about 30 kilobases (and beyond that, the universe having only about 10^80 particles), we won’t even get to 2ω.

  15. 15.

    MJS

    This feeds into the refusal by many to get vaccinated, and should not be amplified until/unless it actually becomes a problem.

  17. 17.

    Spanky

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:  That kind of comports with what I noted in the Reuters article Scout211 quoted. It said that Lambda is more resistant “to vaccines”, but iirc, most of South America until maybe quite recently had NOT gotten the Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccines, so there may be an apples/oranges thing going on in assessing vaccine resistance.

    Somebody got more precise reporting on this?

  18. 18.

    satby

    Also, they mostly used the less effective Chinese vaccines in South America (one country, maybe Chile, is revaccinating with mRNA ones now) so without better studies whether this is more worrisome than Delta is still a question. I think that’s partially why it was labelled a “varient of interest” instead “… of concern”.

  20. 20.

    Fair Economist

    @dr. bloor: Sorry I can’t link studies easily from my phone, but studies generally show mild decreases in antibody binding for Delta, but still plenty for a robust immune response. Pretty much the normal situation for related strains of a virus.

  21. 21.

    dr. bloor

    @MJS: ​
     

    Anyone who is still resistant has established their disinterest in behaving according to available data, and their inclinations need not be taken into account.

  22. 22.

    Cervantes

    It’s too soon to know what the impact will be of recent mutations, but I can tell you this most definitely. If you are fully vaccinated, it is still possible for you to get pretty damn miserably sick with Covid, but it probably won’t last very long. In other words the immune system will rally quickly, meaning you’re very unlikely to wind up in the hospital. However, it may take you at least a couple of weeks to get your strength and stamina back. I know this for a fact because it happened to me. That’s what they call a mild case.

  23. 23.

    MJS

    @dr. bloor: Then let me put it another way. “The sky is falling” articles, with zero evidence to support that the sky is in fact falling are counter-productive. They call into question the efficacy of the vaccines, without evidence, and give idiots in positions of authority cover to claim that mandatory vaccination policies are not necessary.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    Every nation that has been hit with both Delta and Lambda, Delta has pushed out Lambda. Simply put, Delta is a more efficient infection vector, so Lambda can’t get a meaningful foothold. Nothing to worry about here folks, we’re fucking marinating in Delta everywhere in the US.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @MattF: They wouldn’t be infinite numbers, they would just have the same names as some infinite ordinals. Omega will be the 24th named variant (assuming WHO doesn’t skip some of the less-pronounceable Greek letters), so ω+1 will be the 25th and so on.

  28. 28.

    Martin

    @Scout211: There’s two kinds of ‘boosters’.

    One is just a third shot of the initial vaccine. It doesn’t look like the CDC is going down that route, preferring to donate any surplus vaccine to other countries. 110m doses already donated. 500m more expected to be donated in Aug alone.

    The other is a specific booster shot, with improved focus on variants. There are currently clinical trials for all 3 US boosters with increased efficacy against Alpha, and maybe better storage/shelf life properties. They’ve all passed the first stage trials now in 2nd stage. Expected to be approved in 1-2 months.

    Also, trials for age 5-12 and age 2-5 are underway. Both trials were asked to be expanded by the FDA to help detect rare side effects. Approval expected in Oct/Nov for 5-12 and I think Jan for 2-5. Those are a few months later than was reported back in spring.

  29. 29.

    dmsilev

    I propose that all new variants should be named by the same committee that sets USB version numbers. “Covid 3.4 Gen 2 (10 Gb/sec)” is perfectly clear, right?

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: As a counterproposal, let’s use github to keep track of the COVID variants as a tree, using the obvious mapping of mutations to commits. Variants will be identified by the commit hash, and the named variants can be tagged branches.

    It’s simple to understand, since as has famously been said, “git gets easier once you understand branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space”.

  33. 33.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Oh, god, I’m flashing back to all the times I’ve had to yell at my colleagues at the law firm to, for the love of all that’s holy, define your acronyms the first time you use them, because I’m sick of trying to translate an undefined three-letter Greek acronym and all my searches for its meaning coming back with fraternities and sororities instead of the obscure Greek bureaucratic office you actually meant.

    And if these variants put us back to where we were before the vaccines came on line, I’m gonna be hitting anti-vaxxers. I mean it. My 3-D-cell Maglite made it across the ocean with my parents’ stuff, and I’m willing to use it to bludgeon Typhoid Mary and Marty’s.

  35. 35.

    Spanky

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    all my searches for its meaning coming back with fraternities and sororities instead of the obscure Greek bureaucratic office you actually meant.

    There’s a difference?

  39. 39.

    emmyelle

    One of the challenges of living in a country where large swaths of the public have rejected the Theory of Evolution is making people understand that it is BECAUSE we have so many unvaccinated people that we have variants.

    We are creating the optimal environment for the evolution of nasty variants.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    New Yahoo/YouGov poll shows Americans are now in favor of mask mandates:

    This sharp and sudden reversal from past surveys reflects growing fears about Delta and resurgent pessimism about the pandemic itself.

    The survey of 1,552 U.S. adults, which was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 2, found that a full 55 percent favor making it “mandatory to wear masks in public”; 45 percent are opposed.

    Just two and a half weeks ago, those numbers were nearly reversed. In late June, the public opposed mask mandates by a 60 to 40 percent margin.

    Interesting if true.

  41. 41.

    RSA

    @Roger Moore:

    I think if we run out of Greek letters, we would go on to Hebrew.

    My first thought was back to Roman, but then what have the Romans ever done for us?

  46. 46.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    I had an HVAC guy leave a 5 D cell maglite behind one time. Loved that thing. I think one of my kids ganked it from me.

    I’m not going to get to go to Crete next month, am I?

  48. 48.

    JoyceH

    @Spanky: ​
     

    It said that Lambda is more resistant “to vaccines”, but iirc, most of South America until maybe quite recently had NOT gotten the Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccines, so there may be an apples/oranges thing going on in assessing vaccine resistance.

    I read a thing that called lambda vaccine resistant ‘in the lab’. So it sounds like a cage match in a petri dish and it hasn’t really been evaluated when up against actual vaccinated individuals.

    On a brighter note, I was rather discouraged the other day about all the variants and the prospect that one of them could manage to evade the vaccine entirely. But then saw an article that reminded me that Pfizer’s COVID treatment pill could by out by the end of the year. A take at home pill for the already infected. And this is a protease inhibitor, it couldn’t care less what mutant shape the spike proteins are, so COVID can’t mutate out from under it.

  51. 51.

    JoyceH

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    Sanskrit is another good option. 46 letters.

    I vote for the military alphabet. Delta would be a repeat, so would have to be Delta II, but alfa replaces alpha and all the others are different.

    Anyone else, when trying to remember what comes after delta, thinks ‘echo, foxtrot, golf…’?

  52. 52.

    Peale

    IDK. That lambda could be the killer bug that eats the crops despite all the Roundup I’ve sprayed is way down the list.  O.K. I’m really bad at analogies. So sue me.  (The Cockroach that multiplies despite my many Combat traps? The blind mosquito that refuses to fly into the zapper?). Despite the study in Japan, I’m not seeing much evidence of that. Yes, its been devastating in Peru. But I’m not seeing that its also been devastating in Ecuador or Chile or Colombia, and its also been in those countries for months as well. There was a big bit of scare a few weeks ago about it in Chile, but that hasn’t amounted to any extraordinary caseload in a country that is very highly vaccinated. We’ll wait and see, but Lambda is about nine or ten down on my lists of COVID concerns.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @JoyceH: ​
     

    And this is a protease inhibitor, it couldn’t care less what mutant shape the spike proteins are, so COVID can’t mutate out from under it.

    It can’t evade it by mutating spike, but it could presumably mutate its main protease to avoid it.

  54. 54.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @JoyceH: Pfizer is also developing an mRNA-based treatment for malignant melanoma, which hopefully will work really well and would be a huge advancement in cancer treatment.

  59. 59.

    JoyceH

    @Roger Moore:

    It can’t evade it by mutating spike, but it could presumably mutate its main protease to avoid it.

    I suppose it could, but so far, the way it seems to be mutating is by changing the shape of those spikes. Don’t harsh my mellow, dude.

  62. 62.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @JoyceH: I wonder what ever happened to all those treatments that showed promise? Like, there was a trial that indicated that one of the generic SSRIs prevented Covid from progressing from mild the severe (I think it was fluvoxamine or something like that) and then I never saw anything from a larger trial. There was also a drug from a sea squirt derived compound that is currently used to treat multiple myeloma in some countries and then it disappeared from the radar too. Did those just not pan out or did people give up on them too soon because the vaccines arrived? The world could certainly still use effective treatments for some time yet.

  63. 63.

    Starfish

    Going through all these considerations is the most exhausting thing about a pandemic. Last week, I went to the office for the first time in a year or more. Masks are required on the busses to get there, but there are definitely some rule breakers on some busses.

    In the office, no one has to be masked because everyone who is present is required to be vaccinated.

    The grandparents who have not seen us in almost a year and a half asked if they could come visit with Delta, and they go to visit their other grandchildren more because that family seems to not be worried about their kids being exposed or traveling to other countries in a pandemic. Are we neurotic if we say no? How many years do those grandparents have left anyway? Ugh.

    I hate every bit of this so much.

  65. 65.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Starfish: It is tough, especially with kids involved. I have FB friends that are galavanting around the nation and doing a bunch of normal stuff, and have been throughout the pandemic, and it hasn’t caught up to them as far as I can tell. It seems careless in the extreme but they’re doing a bunch of stuff I would really like to have done but didn’t because it felt irresponsible.

  66. 66.

    Manxome Bromide

    @JoyceH: ​
     

    I always figured that we weren’t paying attention to mutations off the spike; if the only mutations aren’t on the spike, after all, then our mRNA and adenovirus vaccines won’t care since the spike is what they code for—there will be no mechanism for vaccine resistance.

    Also, of course, the spike is how it attacks us so if that mutates too far it will no longer be a human targeting virus…

  67. 67.

    TKH

    @dr. bloor: Yes there were studies. Sera from immunized or recovered people are up to about ten-fold less effective in neutralizing virus in cell culture. However, even with this reduction the antibody levels are thought to be sufficient (there is abitbof aleap there methinks).

  69. 69.

    OGLiberal

    @MJS: I’d be somewhat OK with the argument, “These are new vaccines, there may be risks we don’t know of and you may still get COVID even if vaccinated so I’m going to take my chances”, if you coupled that thinking with wearing a mask.  The problem is that the Venn diagram of anti-vaxxers v. anti-maskers is pretty much a single circle.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    In early January 2021, one top Justice Department official was so concerned that then-President Donald Trump might fire his acting attorney general that he drafted an email announcing he and a second top official would resign in response.
    The official, Patrick Hovakimian, prepared the email announcing his own resignation and that of the department’s second-in-command, Richard Donoghue, as Trump considered axing acting attorney general Jeff Rosen. At the time, Hovakimian was an associate deputy attorney general and a senior adviser to Rosen.

    I think they had a duty to inform the public that the US President was attempting a coup.

    Lawyers have an affirmative duty to report. You don’t wait around and see if the attempted crime you’re witnessing can be committed successfully. Not their call to judge whether or not it’s going to come off.

    We deserved notice that this was happening. Had they reported this at the time it occured, publicly, the ensuing months and months of The Big Lie would have transpired completely differently and it would have been treated like the crisis it was. This is more Comey-style management of public perception. It’s inappropriate. They may not manipulate events to fit their personal timeline or professional reputation or employment prospects.

    The revelation is not timely. Whose interests were served by not revealing this extraordinary series of events immediately? Not the public interest. We were in the dark. Their actions should be reviewed by someone outside the DOJ to determine why the public were kept in the dark for going on a year about what Donald Trump and his employees were doing in the months after they refused to concede the election. They protected these people from political and personal consequences for almost a year and that had a profound effect on how the public perceived the attempted coup. This is not their decision to make. They’re supposed to report and let the chips fall.

  72. 72.

    germy

    After working last year 12-16 hours a day . 6 days a week to care for dying patients. I can tell you with ? certainty I don’t have the strength to do this again for another year. I’m so sorry I just can’t.

    — Mary Kelly,RN CEN,CCRN. Mother F’er, Charge Team F (@Meidas_Kelly) August 3, 2021

  73. 73.

    lashonharangue

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

     Pfizer is also developing an mRNA-based treatment for malignant melanoma, which hopefully will work really well and would be a huge advancement in cancer treatment.

    I’m following how that works out. My BIL has malignant melanoma and developed a reaction to the current treatment.  His tests are ok now without the drug.  However, any recurrence before this new one is on the market and his prognosis is grim.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @JoyceH: ​
     

    Anyone else, when trying to remember what comes after delta, thinks ‘echo, foxtrot, golf…’?

    Not me. I remember the lyrics from a very silly song my sister made up: “epsilon and zeta ate a theta, and got a tummy ache”.

  75. 75.

    Peale

    And Brewer No. 8 goes on the Covid-19 DL.  It really was a mistake for them to attend the Bucks game 6 championship.

  76. 76.

    mrmoshpotato

    Via Green_Footballs

    Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) says he regrets signing law banning local mask mandates, as COVID cases quickly rise in his state.“In hindsight, I wish that had not become law,” said Hutchinson, who has asked lawmakers to allow school districts to adopt mask mandates. pic.twitter.com/sj1Q8ukLCA— The Recount (@therecount) August 4, 2021

    “Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) says he regrets signing law banning local mask mandates, as COVID cases quickly rise in his state.”

    WELL, FUCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!

    This is a grown man with over 50 years of adult life experience. And I believe his generation was taught civics to some degree in junior high.

    Letting children die to own the libs is quite the hill to go to Hell on.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    Can we make a rule that the next time the US President attemps a coup the lawyers who supposedly work for us will let us know?  Obviously they can’t report it to the President- he’s attempting the coup. That leaves just one option. Go public.

    Jesus Christ. I guess we gotta lay it out for them.

  79. 79.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    I’d have to go ahead and cough up what I knew while keeping the post as long as I could, executive privilege be damned. I know lawyers that are big on the “sacred duty” bullshit, but at the end of the day it’s just another job.

    Them sitting on the info is just some toxic law school gaslighting, which tends to privilege the powerful.

  81. 81.

    satby

    @Starfish: If it was me, I would visit, socially distant outside, with masks. Which would feel worse, the potential illness (Which could potentially be but often isn’t serious for the majority, and transmission is reduced with those measures) or never seeing the gparents again should one fall ill? Only you can decide your level of risk tolerance.

    I believe this virus is now endemic. We need to start understanding that even perfect %s of immunization will leave some vulnerable people at risk, just like with other diseases we vaccinate against that are still in the wild. As long as you’re realistic about the risks and diligent about precautions, you’ll probably be ok under most circumstances.

  82. 82.

    Peale

    @WaterGirl: Disabled list. Baseball has a separate disabled list for players who test positive or were in contact with someone who was. 10 days minimum for positive test. 7 days for exposure, pending test results to return.  In the past ten days, 6 players have been placed on the DL for testing positive. 2 for exposure.

  83. 83.

    Ken

    I’m going to play games with some friends this Friday (we’re all vaccinated). I was thinking of taking some cookies, and had the thought that hamantaschen look like the letter delta. Bad idea? If so, would oatmeal raisin be an acceptable alternative?

  84. 84.

    burnspbesq

    @Kay:

    I think they had a duty to inform the public that the US President was attempting a coup.

    Cite, please.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Somebody here in the People’s Democratic Social!st Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville just started referring to Delta as the Darwin Variant.

    Very fitting.

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken: My car guy charged me $500 for something that should have cost $700 because it took him longer than he wanted to figure it out.  Whenever he does something special for me, I always bake him brownies or something.

    Yesterday when I picked up my car, I said “brownies?”  Or wouldn’t you want them because of Covid?  He said “let’s wait until this is over”.

    So folks may not want homemade cookies anyway. :-(

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: I think Burnsie is asking for a code of ethics citation mandating a duty to report based on this fact pattern.

  94. 94.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @JoyceH: Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whisky, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. Off the top of my head. 
    (NB the NATO phonetic alphabet differs from the one used by the US armed forces during WW2 [Able, Baker, Charly, Dog, Easy etc.] because even before the breakup of Yugoslavia and the CCCP, it had to be immediately comprehensible to members of the armed forces of 16 different countries [with 11 or 12 native languages] when pronounced by members of the armed forces whose native tongue was one of the other 10 or 11. That’s why you see a lot of “international” words like Hotel, Bravo, Golf [the game or the body of water] in the list.)​

    (ETA: Now we’re up to 13 additional members with something like 12 additional native tongues, and internationality is more important than ever…)

  96. 96.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    And here y’all thought I’m just another family court dilettante, so accustomed to winging it without statutes or case law or rules that I wither when called upon to cite one….  ?

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @burnspbesq:

    Oh, give me a break burns. We were being told that he just needed time to heal and everything was just fine. That was not true.

    This thing that they’re doing- gaming out public perception and arrogantly deciding what needs to be revealed and how it that might affect their careers is not serving us.

    They insulated these people from repercussions for their actions at the time. Who do they work for? Who is the client? It’s not Donald Trump!

    Imagine how differently this would have been perceived by the public had they revealed it when it happened. How did diminishing the threat serve ANYONE other than Donald Trump? This ridiculous idea they have that they are somehow protecting institutional credibility by pretending it’s all peachy keen will be the death of us all. Credibility is about telling the truth. It’s not about protecting liars or pretending things aren’t happening because that might cause a “crisis”. There was a crisis. That’s an accurate representation of what they were witnessing.

    I look forward to more information about what happened in my country over that 3 month period, whenever the lawyers I’m paying see fit to reveal it to me. They’re killing their own credibility. They don’t need any help from Donald Trump.

  98. 98.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    1.6(B)(3) applies, too.

    Also, technically, Trump himself isn’t the client, so his privilege is extremely limited.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: But their argument is that they thought he might do x and if he did they would resign.  He did not do x.  Were they aware of the actions that might be covered by the rule?
    I have had clients who talked about doing things and those I might have suspected were going to do things, but I did not sufficient knowledge under the Rule to violate privilege.  Remember, it is a may, not a shall, rule.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Them sitting on the info is just some toxic law school gaslighting, which tends to privilege the powerful.

    If they can reveal it now why couldn’t they reveal it then? Why is this on their personal timeline? This isn’t useful to me now, other than now I know they need a roadmap to function at all. We should put some more rules in. Their subjective decisions are…. not good. The Comey disease seems to be systemic.

  107. 107.

    Immanentize

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The President is not the client of DOJ lawyers. Although Trump liked to think they were.

    So what’s the privilege? And if you are thinking executive priv., please don’t.

  110. 110.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl:

    The DL is the Disabled List.  In most sports, teams are allowed to put a player who is injured or sick for an extended period on the Disabled List, at which point they don’t count against the roster limit and can be replaced by a backup until they get better.  Most sports have special rules because of the pandemic, including a separate COVID DL.

  114. 114.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: If you want to make the ethical rules as shall report, that’s fine.  But when the rule are may report, the personal judgment comes in.

    I am not going to argue that their judgment was good.  I don’t think it was.  I do think that, under current rules, they could use that judgment and were not necessarily obligated to report.
    Why now?  The DoJ has said they are allowed to talk.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Hovakimian then wrote that preserving DOJ’s institutional integrity was Rosen’s top concern.

    I swear to God I am going to bash my head on my desk if I hear this again. They have lost the plot.
    The thing, “the institution”, does not have “integrity”. People have integrity.
    Stop protecting the institution. That will take care of itself if they do the job. The institution does not exist seperately from the people and actions that make it up. That’s not true.
    They have it backwards.

  117. 117.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Immanentize: My photog friend drives Uber and one of his fares said that Gen. Patton was buried in San Marino.  First off, there are no cemeteries in San Marino(unless you want to count the Mausoleum at The Huntington) and Gen. Patton is buried in Europe.  His father is buried at a cemetery in San Gabriel.

  119. 119.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    LOL

    I managed to surprise a couple of people last week in a hearing on a sizable divorce case which turns on a choice of law provision in a lopsided prenup. Stakes are high – the marital estate is 45M, the marriage is 14 years old and I’m representing the poor side in the thing (he’d given up most of his top tier career as a political operative to play her step ‘n fetchit). The argument is over where they lived for the year prior to execution of the agreement and wedding date, and the other side is arguing that the parol evidence rule blocks my ability to present evidence that her alleged state of domicile was a blatant misrepresentation.

    The other side has hired on a brief writing rules expert as second chair because she’s not great at it. Thing is, the brief writing rules expert isn’t great in a trial setting – and I’ve done some really complicated stuff in my past, trials that lasted weeks.

    Nimble and knowledgeable win the day every time. We’re to briefing now, and I think we have about a 70-80% shot at winning on the choice of law issue.

  121. 121.

    Ohio Mom

    I’m skipping to the end — I just got here, promise to read all the comments that got posted before mine — please remember, lots of what happens in labs doesn’t translate to the human body.

    There are frequent announcements of cancer break throughs, drugs that kill cancer cells in the lab, or even in mice, then they are tested in actual humans and nope, back to square one.

    Lambda sounds scared to me but we need more information before we panic too much. I don’t think a lot of us can help panicking a little.

  123. 123.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Poe Larity: Too much doom and gloom John. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

    Or when the Red Coats fired on Ft Sumter? Or when the Kaiser Sunk The Main? Or when Carlos Santana stormed the Alamo?

  125. 125.

    James E Powell

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I know that, but don’t think it matters in this case. If the president who appointed you is going to try to overthrow the government, do you care if he fires you? Wouldn’t you be quitting in the same press conference in which you reveal his plans to overthrow the government?

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ah, yes. “It’s not a shall”. I guess we need to add 40 pages to the rule book before the lawyers tell the client the clients house is on fire and they’re negotiating with the arsonist.

    Oops! He got away! He’s already launched his 2024 campaign, thanks to the six months lead time they gave him. In what world is this NOT interfering politically? They understand that’s exactly what they managed to do, right? What on earth is wrong with these people? Why can’t they think?

  129. 129.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @James E Powell:

    “He’s trying to overthrow the Constitutional order. I’m not resigning – my duty is to the American people”.

  130. 130.

    JCJ

    @Peale:

    Yesterday there was a report that nearly 500 people who were at the Deer District have tested positive.  I don’t know if Yelich and Hader are included in that list.

     

    This is hardly a surprise considering the mass of people at those games and the parade.

  134. 134.

    frosty

    @raven: ​
     I learned them way back when I got a ham radio license … which was probably about the time you enlisted.

  136. 136.

    Montanareddog

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: you said that Patton is buried in Europe. Was the fare referring to San Marino the tiny enclave in Italy?

    ETA: I see Ken got there first. Both European micro-states so Ken is probably right.

  137. 137.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize: Not quite the same thing, but alleging a violation of WI consumer protection law will always guarantee venue in a WI court no matter what choice venues clauses are in a contract.  Now you know.

  140. 140.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: They think more about their circumstances than their obligations to the public because of their profession. The ethical rules are not rules of good ethical behavior, they are the absolute minimum necessary to avoid complete client and professional disaster.

    There are so many attorneys I know who have significant red lines for their behavior that are not covered by the rukes. I like to think I am one of them. But that internal compass is way beyond the CoPR. If you are a high up in DOJ, you should have them too. The military specifically trains soldiers how to not violate the rules of war, including not obeying illegal orders. Maybe DOJ needs such comprehensive training.

  141. 141.

    raven

    @frosty: Do you know about MARS where we could call home and they’d hook up with a ham and “phone patches”  so you could call home?

  142. 142.

    Sure Lurkalot

    New Yahoo/YouGov poll shows Americans are now in favor of mask mandates

    I did a couple of grocery and supply runs and there seems to be an uptick in masking. Likely the vast majority are vaccinated, informed and believe in the concept of abundance of caution.

    My spouse is pressuring me to attend a birthday party where I know one of the residents is not vaxxed while the other two (Trump voters) are.  Based on their politics, I think it’s safe to say other invitees won’t be vaxxed.  Spouse says…”well she’s (the birthday girl) a nurse.” Yeah, a nurse who allows her 40+ son to live in her home unvaxxed and off she goes to work in a clinic everyday. No concept of caution, much less abundance of it

  145. 145.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    Awesome! As a scenario for your students, my principal bind is this – there is a clear and unequivocal statement of domicile at the time of execution of the prenup that is a blatant misrepresentation, and her attempts to justify it are an absurdity. While under ordinary contractual analysis the parol evidence rule (and some aspect of the merger rule) would seemingly apply to block counter testimony, prenups have always been different in terms of their scope of review, the entirety of which requires the use of parol evidence.

    There’s not a lot of authority out there on this. There are a couple of California cases that destroy my position, but nobody addressed the notion of the inherent reviewability of prenups for conscionability.

    Find the student that can write their way through that conundrum, pro or con, and you’ll have someone who’s gonna make a hell of a lawyer.

  146. 146.

    StringOnAStick

    @Kay: You are so right.  One of these tRump DOJ attorneys should have done the Pentagon Papers route BEFORE 1/6 happened; that information would have changed everything about how we are collectively not paying enough attention to the current on-going coup attempts; it’s not over, not by a long shot.  Witness Tucker Carlson and his lovefest in Hungary.

  147. 147.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Timurid: I will take your word for it. My knowledge of Tamil extends to some nouns and zero reading comprehension.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: We are talking about the kind of lawyers who would still be serving at the policy making level at the end of Trump’s term.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    It just seems like if your intention is not to affect the political process with your actions, yet your actions keep having a profound affect on political perceptions in a way that does not fit in any way with the reality of events, you’re not doing a good job protecting “institutional credibility”.

    Hillary Clinton was not guilty of anything and Donald Trump attempted a coup. For some crazy reason the people who tell us their first order of business is protecting integrity somehow managed to mislead the public about both of those things, with real consequences.

  153. 153.

    Ken

    @Omnes Omnibus: While finding how big Luxembourg and San Marino are, I learned that Georgia – the one in the Caucasus – is partly in Europe. Shows how arbitrary that border is, I guess.

    Then while reading a bit about Georgia, I found that it had a historical kingdom called Iberia, which suggests to me that they’re just trolling us with the duplicate names.

  154. 154.

    Montanareddog

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    the entirety of which requires the use of parol evidence

     

     

    nobody addressed the notion of the inherent reviewability of prenups for conscionability

    My love for the beauty of the English language may be one of the reasons I have neither a law qualification nor an MBA

  157. 157.

    Immanentize

    @Ken: I was doing a State Department funded judicial education trip to Rostov-on-Don in Russia. Walking across the bridge was a short walk between Europe and Asia.  Cool beans!

  158. 158.

    Baud

    Via LGM

    A federal judge in Colorado has sanctioned two lawyers who filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election late last year, finding that the case was “frivolous,” “not warranted by existing law” and filed “in bad faith.”

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    They need something. Their best thinking keeps ending up having exactly the opposite effect they claim to want.

    In my experience it’s never that complicated. You know law school exams. What’s always the right answer? Notice and reveal. The answer is never “omit, then reveal to Politico 6 months after the fact” :)

    I’m not even asking that they stop the coup. I just want them to notice me. “It has come to my attention that the President is attempting a coup”. Thank you. We’ll take it from here.

  162. 162.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken:

    Patton’s family was from the San Marino area.  His maternal grandfather, Benjamin Wilson, owned Rancho San Pasqual, which included modern Pasadena, South Pasadena, Altadena, and San Marino; he was the namesake of Mount Wilson.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I had one that I was tied up in knots over because they wanted to keep me. I asked a lawyer I trust and I got a one word email back “withdraw”.

    Okay then! The question is always what serves the client, not the lawyer. Always. It’s not that hard. If you’re making it hard you’re fooling yourself in some way. They’re not responsible for what comes after- markets crash, allies freak out, whatever. They have to tell us. They can’t game out the after. They’re really bad at gaming out the after anyway.

  164. 164.

    PJ

    I just realized the post title was a riff on Little Feat’s “Oh, Atlanta”.  Well done, Cole.

  165. 165.

    Another Scott

    @Kay:

    somehow

    You’re surely not implying that their words have no correspondence to their actions??!

    ;-)

    One of Dean Baker’s (many) hobby-horses is that reporters have no idea what someone “believes” when they’re doing a report. They, objectively, can report what they say, and they can report their actions. They cannot have any knowledge about what they “believe”. They just can’t.

    People lie and deceive. Reporters know this, but they continue to mislead the public via their reporting by using language like this.

    Grrr…

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  166. 166.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    Kentucky, the unquestioned domicile for most of the last 14 years, gives us a look at conscionability at the time of enforcement. Indiana (the state named in the choice of law clause and where the other party claimed to reside at the time the agreement was executed) takes the approach that these things will be rigidly enforced as executed with no examination as to conscionability at the end – and only a limited look at the beginning positions.

    Drafting attorneys worked for the other party, and were located in Indianapolis. That’s also where her securities brokers are located. She sold her Indiana farm two years after marriage, had bought a home in Kentucky 7 months prior to execution of the prenup. She also kept her thoroughbreds in training in Kentucky, with side training trips to Arkansas and Florida.

  168. 168.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: i have a friend up here representing a difficult client in an interesting case. He has what he thinks is an exciting 1stA claim that will help his client win. But his client insisted he file a brief written by a RWNJ law firm in DC. My friend did it, but did not sign the pleading. Fed. Judge wants to know why — friend tells him. Suddenly, there is a status conference with all parties and the RWNJ firm. My friend is NOT the target of the judge, but he feels super rotten.

    He should withdraw, but the judge won’t let him just yet….

  170. 170.

    Ken

    @PJ: I just realized the post title was a riff on Little Feat’s “Oh, Atlanta”.

    I thought it was “O, Canada.”

  171. 171.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I just got email from my hospital system (Advocate Aurora) that as of mid October, they’re going to require all their employees to be vaccinated. I don’t know why the delay but I’m glad it’s happening

  172. 172.

    Immanentize

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Quick thought — can the Kentucky parole evidence rule (might be best to characterize it this way) be considered strictly procedural which would mean, regardless of law choice rules, that Kentucky law would, in most cases apply for a determination of exactly what the conflict is? In other words, courts endeavor to avoid conflicts. If Kentucky can, through it’s procedural rules, determine there is no conflict as to actual domicile, that part of the case is resolved

    On the other hand, if Kentucky has decided evidence of unconscionability is always substantive (and not procedural) then you have a problem.

    But almost no state says that choice of law rules apply to procedure. If you are in Kentucky under appropriate jurisdiction, then Kentucky procedure applies until you reach wholly substantive issues.

    Capiche?

  173. 173.

    Peale

    @Baud: Good. Look, I know its easy to make lawyer jokes and whatnot, and we civilians don’t normally read legal briefs, and my only experience was a paralegal trainee for a pro bono social security dyability non-profit 25 years ago, but what I did read of the court filings last year was absolutely appalling. I know they aren’t being sanctioned for typos…but…these were not the types of documents I would have been allowed to gather together to put in front of an ALJ.  Lowered my opinion of the profession as a whole. If there is really a surplus of lawyers out there, it would do no harm to shed all of these participants.

  174. 174.

    frosty

    @raven:  Yes, I remember phone patching. I never got far enough along* to do that, but it was a great way to avoid long distance charges.

    * Bought a transmitter (Morse), strung the antenna but never got the final amplifier (?) to load up right so I never got on the air. Probably about the time I got a driver’s license, so that was it for radio.
    I hear that these days the airwaves are full of Trumpies.

  175. 175.

    Ruckus

    @rp:

    The military enlistment oath is very similar to that but a bit more specific as it relates to chain of command.

    The military officers oath is even closer to that than the enlisted oath.

    It sounded quite similar to what I remember from over 51 yrs ago.

  176. 176.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: Interesting, thank you. It almost sounds like the “three-generation” rule in action; grandfather owned half of California, grandson got fired for insubordination.

  177. 177.

    Mary G

    @Kay: Preach. The numbers of people who are justifying and excusing the inaction of TFG administration insiders, particularly in the press just appall me. Ooh, Rosen refused to sign the memo, what a brave patriot he is. Bullpuckey. Rosen kept it quiet. A brave patriot would’ve done like Vindman did, march into Congress and spill it to the world in front of cameras. Rosen didn’t because he didn’t want to lose his career like Vindman did. He could’ve leaked a copy to the WaPo or NYT, but no.

  179. 179.

    Ruckus

    @Immanentize:

    The military specifically trains soldiers how to not violate the rules of war, including not obeying illegal orders.

    In my experience they don’t specifically train, they hound until you can recite all of it in your sleep…… or drunk or stoned. Or all three at once.

  182. 182.

    Low Key Swagger

    Since Satby gave me good advice…I’m reporting in.  No Covid, strep or flu.  Garden variety upper respitory infection.

  185. 185.

    Ruckus

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    In my city in socal, being in LA county, we are back on an indoor mask mandate. And we are 73% fully vaccinated now. Somehow that magic 27% just keeps popping up.

    I just went to the store a bit ago and I couldn’t even see a nose in the joint. Normally I don’t go during the day because it’s too crowed. But it wasn’t bad so I went in.

  191. 191.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    Over the years, Kentucky has generally been very “fuck your choice of law clause – you’re here and we here at the appellate courts don’t like the thought the work involved in applying foreign law to a case that we’re having to decide”. I think at the end of the day, the parol evidence aspect will be deemed procedural as opposed to substantive.

    The evidentiary hearing on the choice of law issue – with the parol evidence motion in limine pending – was two and a half hours. Once we get out briefs in with replies, surreplies etc, judge will take a couple of months to decide which law applies. Once she does, we then go in on the meat of the agreement. If she says Indiana controls, my guy is pretty fucked unless I pull a rabbit out of a hat. If (as I suspect she will) she says Kentucky controls, we get to complain about the circumstances at the time of enforcement, and I think that opens everything to an equitable settlement.

    What I hate about applying Indiana law is the fact that the prenup will actually claw back some assets that are in his name due to principal reduction on secured loans (she lobbied him to quit work, so he missed out on about 2.5M of income over the course of the marriage, and is diminished in his career).

  193. 193.

    glc

    Re the post – my feeling is that now is the time to get in whatever break or reconnect you desperately need, before things get worse. Depending on the local situation of course, which may be hard to gauge just now.

    Going forward, no idea, only our current plans for September are now, entirely hypothetically, plans for October, and I’m keeping an eye on my plans for December (for which there is an associated hotel reservation), which seemed like a fairly safe call in early June.

    Hoping to find further enlightenment hereabouts as things develop.

  195. 195.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken: ​
     
    Lichtenstein is interesting because it’s one of only two doubly land locked countries, i.e. countries that are not just landlocked but only have borders with landlocked countries. The other is Uzbekibekistan Uzbekistan.

  198. 198.

    Ruckus

    @Immanentize:

    If anyone even attempted to train government attorneys the way they do enlisted military, the government would be dissolved in less time than it would take for the drink they’d have after they were done dissolving. And BTW I was in the navy and boot camp was like  a summer camp for 12 yr olds, compared to the marines next door.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @gvg:

    No it didn’t. And I’ll ask, who got in trouble for that, enlisted or politicians? OK it wasn’t much trouble but still, it was more than none.

  202. 202.

    Barry

    @burnspbesq: “Cite, please.”

    If you are aware that your client is committing a crime, what are your responsibilities as an officer of the court?

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @Kay: 

    …What on earth is wrong with these people? Why can’t they think?…

    WAG (Wild assed guess) they can’t think because they are Republicans, who are not allowed to think at all. They just do as they’re told.

  206. 206.

    J R in WV

    We went to town today. We dropped a damaged auto off at the body shop, for repair of the whole body, after 3 different accidents, two were minor, 1st damaged a rear panel, second damaged under the passenger front door, third rear-ended another vehicle. I hear parts are largely unavailable.

    Front, all the plastic is shattered, left fender contacts the driver’s door. Mine was the only mask at the body shop, don’t know vaccination status. Shop owner, Spiro, is a great Greek guy, probably my age. His dad did body work for me 45 years ago, recently passed at 96. Spiro collects old cars, rebuild them to spec, immaculate work!

    Then we went to the Farmer’s Market. Not many masks there either. Then to Kroger’s… not many masks there, more than the other stops, but still, not many. Just us, left wing Dem hippies wearing blue medical disposable masks.

    Was sad~!!~

  207. 207.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ken:

    The Ukraine girls really knock me out,

    They leave the West behind.

    And Moscow girls make me sing and shout

    And Georgia’s always on ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ha mind…

    (Aah, come on!)

    FTR during a long week touristing in Lviv and Kyiv in the Teens I noted that “the Ukraine girls” have the highest and sharpest cheekbones in the mulitverse below steel-blue eyes the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Frequently gorgeous, but with that “slice you open as soon as look at you” look….

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