Here’s the coronavirus death toll through May 29. It’s funny that Italy’s trendline is so weirdly smooth. Every other country has lots of noise, especially when they get below two deaths per million. But Italy is just a lovely, smooth line. It makes me kind of suspicious, actually.

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

Hilbert is not amused.

Between the dex and the news, I don’t really trust either my emotions or my judgment for the time being. So instead of saying anything about the appalling news of the past couple of days I’m going to bury myself in charts. I’ve got two for you, and for what it’s worth, they represent genuinely good news. First off, here are personal income and personal expenditures in April:

It’s no surprise that spending is down, but you might be surprised that income is up. How can that be? The answer is simple: the coronavirus stimulus bill sent everyone a $1,200 check and funded a $600 per week bonus for everyone getting unemployment insurance. The result of this is that many of the working poor saw their incomes go up even though they lost their jobs. This in turn pushed up the average.

But if income is up and expenditures are down, this must mean that savings have skyrocketed:

The good news here is conditional. If we get COVID-19 under control so that jobs return and people aren’t afraid to go out and spend money, we have a tremendous amount of savings on the sideline just waiting to be spent. And keep in mind that this is only through April. We can expect the savings rate to stay at a high level in May and June.

This is plenty to power a recovery from the artificial recession we’re in now. But only if the pandemic is under control. Fiscally, we’ve done the right thing. Epidemiologically, the jury is still out.

UPDATE: I originally showed these figures on an annual basis. I’ve changed both charts to show everything on a monthly basis.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through May 28. What’s going on with Canada?

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” President Trump tweeted last night. Twitter was not amused:

Twitter is obviously not backing down in its war with Trump, and I think it’s safe to say that Trump won’t back down either. Prepare yourself for an epic meltdown.

Just for the record: Donald Trump’s executive order today about social media is meaningless, illegal, and unenforceable. It’s red meat for the rubes and nothing more.

Don’t be a rube.

This is a coastal paintbrush, aka coast Indian paintbrush. At least, I think so. There are several other varieties of paintbrush that look pretty similar, but this seems the most likely ID to me.

Oliver Contreras/CNP via ZUMA

In the past few days Donald Trump has:

• Cranked up the volume on his pointless cold wars with China and Iran
• Turned mask wearing into a culture war campaign issue
• Accused a TV host of murdering an intern
• Declared war on voting by mail
• Insisted that James Comey and a variety of others should be in jail
• Pushed an absurd “unmasking” non-scandal
• Insisted that Barack Obama personally led a spying campaign against him
• Retweeted a video saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat”
• Retweeted QAnon conspiracy theories

All of this has happened in the midst of an enormous pandemic which should be occupying all his time. Instead he’s virtually ignoring it because he can’t figure out what to do aside from handing it over to his son-in-law and then hauling out his iPhone to tweet about something he heard on Fox & Friends.

Is Trump mentally unstable? I don’t know. But he’s sure not mentally all there, is he? What kind of leader decides he can just shut his eyes to a deadly pandemic and instead spend all his time plotting revenge on enemies both real and imagined? Only a mentally infantile one. When will the Republican Party finally realize just what kind of trouble they’ve gotten us into?

Even I’m a little tired of my obsession with the California bullet train, but here’s the latest anyway:

The state rail authority is moving ahead with a plan to issue a massive contract for tracks and an electrical system that would enable bullet train service in the Central Valley. But when the service starts in 2028, it would lose money that the state would absorb, according to consultants for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

In other words, it would require subsidies, despite clear language in the original bond measure that no subsidies would be allowed.

So the bullet train will cost far more than originally planned; have lower ridership than promised; extend only from Bakersfield to Merced (a “starter system”); require subsidies; and barely go fast enough to deserve the name “bullet” in the first place. Other than that, though, everything is great.

It’s hard to find anything even approaching good news this morning, but at least I have some personal good news. It appears that Pomalyst is doing a good job on my multiple myeloma:

Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good: the dex is becoming worse and worse over time. Wednesdays and Sundays are now given over almost entirely to sleep and the other days aren’t so hot either. At the same time, my breathing seems like it’s continuing to deteriorate too. Maybe it’s time to try an even smaller dose than I’m using now.

Alternatively, I could replace the dex with hydroxychloroquine. I hear it’s pretty good for whatever ails you.