There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Linkee-poo Thursday

Sorry, the hospital has been calling me in for shifts a lot this week. This second round of flu is really bad (also our department has had 3 exposures to the norovirus since February).

"Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said Tuesday that he deliberately exposed his nine children to chickenpox in lieu of vaccinating them, actions that follow reports of an outbreak of the contagious disease at a Roman Catholic school in a northern part of the state." What a fucking asshole. Hope you and your kids don't develop Shingles.

Also along with the refer madness story yesterday, "Certain medications used to treat ADHD in teens and young adults may be more likely to cause symptoms such as paranoia, hallucinations, delusions and hearing voices, a new study suggests."

"Men are dying after opioid overdoses at nearly three times the rate of women in the United States. Overdose deaths are increasing faster among black and Latino Americans than among whites. And there's an especially steep rise in the number of young adults ages 25 to 34 whose death certificates include some version of the drug fentanyl."

"Gov. Kim Reynolds is warning Iowans what millions of Midwesterners have come to understand in recent days – the severe flooding that has swamped much of the region may be a long way from over." Surprise. Also, we've barely just begun the Spring Flood Season. And if the ground it too wet, they won't be able to get planting done in time.

"Some 15,000 people still need to be rescued from the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai, Mozambique officials say."

"In the U.S., while many young Muslims wept over the loss of life and the hate that drove the killings, they said they weren't surprised. They're a generation that has been raised on a constant barrage of anti-Muslim rhetoric since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

"New Zealand will ban all types of semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles following the Christchurch attacks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said… The announcement comes less than a week after 50 people were killed at two mosques, allegedly by a lone gunman."

"A massive chemical fire that filled the sky with smoke and flames for days in southeast Texas has finally been snuffed out. But its effects could still be dangerous… The city of Deer Park announced a shelter-in-place order Thursday morning due to concerns about 'levels of benzene or other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) within city limits.'" Remember when there was nothing to be concerned about with breathing the air while the fire was ongoing?

"US Justice Department prosecutors have issued multiple subpoenas as part of an investigation into Boeing's Federal Aviation Administration certification and marketing of 737 Max planes, sources briefed on the matter told CNN."

"Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under threat of indictment and fighting for re-election in just three weeks against a popular former Army chief, Benny Gantz, is getting a big boost from President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, clearly seeing foreign policy as a welcome distraction from his domestic troubles." Good thing that Gaza strife is heating up as well. Almost like it's planned.

"Immigration officials say a Mexican migrant died Monday after his arrest near an urban border crossing."

Why is the SCOTUS ruling vacating the 5th and 14th Amendment guarantees of due process important? "A troubling new report by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests many U.S. citizens — potentially numbering in the hundreds — are being wrongly detained for deportation every year after Immigration and Customs Enforcement misidentifies them as undocumented immigrants." Because government can get things wrong, especially when you have an organization with all the problems of ICE and the CBP. That's the generous way of looking at this. The ungenerous way is that this is a progrom of intimidation against minorities, a way of saying that the government can lock you up at any time for any reason. And without the protections of the 5th and 14th Amendments, they can lock you away indefinitely on the pretext of one law enforcement official "thinking" you're an illegal immigrant. (Grokked from Joy Reid)

"The EU’s commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, said Wednesday that Google must pay 1.49 billion euros ($1.69 billion) for stifling competition in the online advertisement sector."

"The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to hold interest rates steady, shave the number of hikes projected for the rest of the year, and release long-awaited details of a plan to end the monthly reduction of its massive balance sheet." How'd that go?

"As they kept the federal funds rate steady in a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent, Fed officials also cut their economic outlook. They now expect gross domestic product growth of 2.1 percent this year, down from a 2.3 percent estimate in December."

"Donald Trump, the President who refused to release his tax returns, just made an unexpected gesture towards transparency, saying he'd be happy for Americans to see Robert Mueller's final report." The president always wants to do things, right up to the point he has to do those things, and then he changes his mind. Plus, you know, release of the Mueller Report polls quite well.

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