HOMEMADE MASKS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN THOUGHT: ‘Exhaustive’ study shows cloth masks help protect both wearers and those nearby. But not just any cloth mask: “The research, led by airborne disease transmission expert Linsey Marr, found, based on testing different materials, that a three-layer mask consisting of outer layers of a flexible, tightly woven fabric and an inner layer made from one of several materials designed to filter small particles, should provide at least 74 percent material filtration efficiency for the most penetrating particle size.”

JAMES LILEKS ON UFO:

I’m somewhat surprised by how good it is. The FX, the miniature work — it’s fantastic. Ed Bishop’s no-nonsense Straker is a man under unbelievable stress, when you think about it, and what seemed cold and brusque when I was a kid is now the character of a fellow who has no time for error or lassitude.

I think the thing that sealed the deal, and said this is not silly kitsch, was an early episode in which Straker’s spending the day with his son. He’s divorced. After he drops off the kid, there’s a traffic accident, and the child is seriously injured. Because the sonsuffers from a plot-induced condition, he needs a rare medicine, and Straker pulls strings to get SHADO air assets to transport it. But oh no, there’s a UFO attack! He has to decide – get the medicine to his son, or bring down the threat?

He goes with the former, and there’s a few tense moments, but the plane eventually gets the medicine to the kid, as we knew it would.

But it’s too late and his son dies and his ex-wife curses him.

That’s the thing about UFO: for a show made by people known for rictus-faced marionettes, it’s remarkably dark. That doesn’t make it good, of course. But it gives it a character that’s more shaded than the garish overlit shots suggest.

And of course it has a fantastic theme.

Gerry Anderson’s finest hour as a producer and show creator. (No actually, there were several good episodes; and the suspension of disbelief needed to watch UFO was much lower than Anderson’s next series, the crapfest that was Space: 1999.)

COLORADO: Larimer County restaurant owners: New COVID order a death sentence; we will not shut down.

A group of restaurant and brewery owners in Larimer County said Monday afternoon that enough is enough. They will not be shutting down in-person dining under the county’s new “Level Red” designation on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s COVID dial.

“While COVID is not a death sentence for the majority of people who get it, this order will be for many Loveland Businesses,” said Clay Caldwell in a news release. “To follow this order would mean laying off dozens of people who then don’t know if they have enough to pay rent and give their family a nice Christmas.”

Caldwell, owner of Betta Gumbo, and Morgen Harrington, one of the owners of Grimm Brothers Brewhouse — both in Loveland — are leading the effort. They announced their decision through a news release Monday afternoon. They said they will continue to operate at the “yellow” level they have been.

Larimer County is in the sparsely-populated northern reaches of Colorado’s Front Range, and despite the surge in COVID-19 infections, still enjoys high ICU availability.

WELL, GOOD: Study: Asymptomatic and secondary infected individuals do not infect others.

DIGITAL PATERNALISM: Twitter to show a warning when you try to like a labeled tweet.

DIFI OUT, DICK DURBIN IN. Not hugging it out: Schumer boots Feinstein from Judiciary leadership; Graham: “Literally ran … out of her job.”

BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES: Ohio Gov. DeWine Vows to Veto Bill Stripping His ‘Ultimate’ COVID Powers.

NOW TALK ABOUT HOW THEY HANDLE SEX: Junk food, booze often star in America’s hit movies.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Minneapolis Facing Higher Crime, Police Exodus Six Months After George Floyd’s Death.

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT HE TURNED OUT TO BE: James Mattis: Joe Biden Must Eliminate ‘America First’ from U.S. Foreign Policy.

UH OH: Vaccine plans are professional and good to go — unless Team Biden screws everything up.

Obligatory flashback: Obama on Joe Biden: ‘Don’t Underestimate Joe’s Ability to F**k Things Up.’

HMM: Merck to acquire U.S. biotech with experimental COVID-19 drug.

DEFUND THE POLICE: Armed Baltimore Gangs Target Delivery Drivers In Recent Wave Of Carjackings And Robberies.

DOW CROSSES 30,000 FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY.

Obligatory flashbacks: PAUL KRUGMAN ON ELECTION NIGHT 2016: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”

And from March: GIVEN HIS TRACK RECORD, THIS IS THE BEST NEWS I’VE SEEN IN WEEKS: Paul Krugman: Market signaling a ‘permanent recession.’

SO HE’S ON THE OTHER SIDE THEN: US should encourage China’s rise, Biden national security pick Jake Sullivan says.

Don’t question his patriotism.

GET READY FOR ROILING POPULIST COVID LOCKDOWN BACKLASH:

The backlash is coming.

It already seems clear that the first major political and cultural eruption of the Biden years will be a roiling populist backlash against the next round of COVID-19 lockdowns and other restrictions on ordinary life.

We saw this sentiment play out in sporadic anti-lockdown demonstrations last spring, and it has driven ongoing resistance to masks. But it is, in all likelihood, about to reach a entirely new level — fueled by exhaustion with the virus, infuriating displays of elite hypocrisy and the shattered credibility of the public-health establishment.

The ascension of Joe Biden will add force to the reaction. It is an iron law of American politics that whichever party doesn’t control the presidency will suspect the other of plotting to impose a tyranny, so the fear and loathing of COVID-19 restrictions, somewhat muted on the right while Donald Trump was president, will deepen and intensify.

The right’s populism and limited-government impulse, which separated in the Trump years, will presumably be reunited in the push against lockdowns in a way that they haven’t been since the days of the Tea Party.

“Lockdowns. Mask police. Curfews. What about freedom?” asked conservative Rep. Jim Jordan in a recent tweet, forecasting things to come.

Why would there be any backlash, when AP is “reporting” that “The pandemic has forced people to spend more time with themselves than ever. It has reshaped and broadened the way many think about how they treat themselves — what has come to be called self-care. People are baking, gardening and learning new skills.” Lockdowns are a wonderful thing in the AP collective mindset!

As Twitchy asks, “Remember when the AP was something you could trust? Good times.” Yes, but that was quite a long time ago. At the end of the otherwise calm spring of 2008, AP was busy reminding people that “Everything Seemingly is Spinning Out of Control,” to help prime the pump for the coming Obama era.

DON SURBER IS NOT WELCOMING THE NEVERTRUMPERS BACK INTO THE FOLD: “This is not Romney’s party or McCain’s or Bush’s. We push back now. And if those who conspired with Democrats against The Donald think they are re-taking the party, they have another thing coming to them.”

But read the whole thing. Including this bit from Chris Caldwell: “Trump didn’t sell out his supporters. In fact, his presidency saw something extraordinary, even if it was all but invisible from the country’s globalized cities: the first egalitarian boom since well back into the twentieth century. In 2019, the last non-Covid year, he presided over an average 3.7% unemployment rate and 4.7% wage growth among the lowest quartile of earners. All income brackets increased their take. That had happened in the last three Obama years, too. The difference is that in the Obama part of the boom the income of the top decile rose by 20 percent, with tiny gains for other groups. In the Trump economy, the distribution was different. Net worth of the top 10% rose only marginally, while that of all other groups vaulted ahead. In 2019, the share of overall earnings going to the bottom 90% of earners rose for the first time in a decade.”

HMM: Stacey Abrams: More Than 750K Georgians Requested Absentee Ballots for Senate Runoffs.

A BEAUTIFUL BLESSING FOR TOUGH TIMES: OneHeartDC is a coalition of Washington, D.C. region congregations that came together to, among much else, produce this remarkable video version of a song based on Numbers 6:22-26.

No, it’s not political, but it is something hopeful and beautiful during this week when millions of Americans will not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. Whether or not you happen to be a person of faith, I’m confident this will be a blessing to you.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: The CDC Doesn’t Want You Singing Any Thanksgiving Carols, Seriously.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: What does the CDC think it is we rubes do for Thanksgiving?

Answer: They picture us doing keg stands before gathering around the hi-fi boom-box to sing our favorite Thanksgiving carols at the tops of our lungs, apparently.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Fox Woke News crashes and burns.
• Portland restauranteur complains about antifa vandalism, then his restaurant burns.
• Meet Colorado’s attractive, young, gun-toting congresswoman.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: The History of Fabric Is the History of Civilization. New video from Reason TV:

Postrel’s newest book is The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Your Political Leaders Hate You And Think You’re Stupid.

You might think the state’s top medical lobbyists would think twice about flagrantly disregarding COVID guidelines, or even feign an apology like Newsom, but no. A spokesman for the CMA told Politico that “the dinner was held in accordance with state and county guidelines,” which prohibit more than three households from gathering privately—but do allow restaurants to seat people from more than three households together. See?

Apparently this is a pretty common attitude among California politicians and their lobbyist buddies. With much of their state locked down by government fiat, last week a bunch of state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists flew off to Hawaii for a five-day conference and schmooze-fest at an upscale Maui resort. Legislators and their families mingled with representatives of businesses and trade groups that paid thousands of dollars for access to the lawmakers in what has become an annual lobbying tradition—even during a global pandemic!

Dan Howle, chairman and executive director of the Independent Voter Project, which hosts the conference, didn’t apologize.

Read the whole thing.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Why not ‘My Fuhrer’? Appeals court grills public college on forcing professor to call male student ‘miss.’

WE REALLY NEED A VOTING AND VOTE-COUNTING SYSTEM THAT IS MORE TRUSTWORTHY: Almost no Trump voters consider Biden the legitimate 2020 election winner. “A mere 3% of voters for President Donald Trump think President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election, while 73% think the incumbent was the victor, according to a CNBC/Change Research poll.”

Of course, this story blames “Trump’s unsubstantiated claims” without noting how Democrats prepared the ground with four years of talk about “hacked elections.”

Plus: “Loyalty to Trump runs deep among the respondents. Asked with whom they would identify if the president left the GOP, 72% responded Trump’s party, while 28% answered the Republican Party.”

Caveat: This is a poll. How reliable have they been lately?