Linkee-poo and all those late night promises I guess they don't mean a thing

Apparently this weekend, instead of Groundhog Day there's something about a Superb Owl. Don't know much about it.

"The World Health Organization declared coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern at a news conference Thursday in Geneva… The first case of human-to-human coronavirus transmission in the U.S. has been confirmed, in a patient in Illinois, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday." Now is it time to panic? (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)

"There's another virus that has infected 15 million Americans across the country and killed more than 8,200 people this season alone. It's not a new pandemic -- it's influenza." Get the goddamn shot if you can.

"Hundreds of hospitals across the U.S., including a number with sterling reputations for cutting-edge care, will be paid less by Medicare after the federal government pronounced that they had higher rates of infections and patient injuries than others." That's the game we play. Note that it's not "doesn't meet this standard of care", it's just the lowest 25%. Every year. Law of averages. It's about breaking the system.

"On Thursday, Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced a new pathway for states to receive a capped amount of federal dollars for part of the program. The new demonstration program, called Healthy Adult Opportunity, would not be mandatory for states and would not affect all Medicaid beneficiaries, only adults under age 65 who are not disabled." Welcome to healthcare rationing, brought to you by the GOP. They know Medicare/Medicaid are some of the most beloved parts of the government. They want to change that so they can dismantle the social safety net.

And in Ohio education… "Talks on a deal to stop a huge increase in the number of Ohio public school buildings where students would qualify for private school vouchers are dragging on. And the House Speaker is proposing a major overhaul of the voucher system." A few years ago lawmakers swapped an "or" for an "and" and this year 70% of school districts will now be on the hook for paying vouchers for students to attend private schools. And that may break many schools (because that money comes out of the district budgets). So far people are yelling about this like it's a bug when it was always the plan of the pro-voucher organizations.

"Republican leaders in the Senate have approved a deal that would stop a dramatic increase in the number of public school buildings where students will be eligible for private school vouchers starting this weekend." Yeah, that didn't go very far. But it makes our conservative government look like it "cares."

"The House has voted on a plan to move the start of Ohio's private school voucher application process ahead to April 1, just hours before the EdChoice program is supposed to start accepting applications on Saturday. It now has to go to the Senate this morning, and a statement suggests the vote there may run into problems." Yeah, probably nothing will happen.

Also, "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine isn’t weighing in on the deliberations in the House and Senate over school vouchers. But he is talking about the need to do more to help failing school districts early on." Here comes state control over schools. Not that I'm opposed to that, but it seems funny that it's coming from the conservatives who have been all about "local control."

And while we're talking about Ohio, "Protesters protest bill strengthening penalties for damages sustained during protests." This is a continuation of conservatives in Ohio to make protesting a crime. You don't see many protests on Ohio college campuses because of this.

"The lightbulb aisle can be a confusing place because over the past five years, a revolution has taken place in the lighting industry. The old energy-hogging incandescent lightbulb that dominated lighting for more than a century is going away. Now more efficient LED, or light-emitting diode, bulbs are taking over." The Life Kit podcast with some helpful tips. For about 8 years I was intimately involved with producing the catalogs for GE Lighting, so I know a lot of this (don't get me started talking about light bulbs), but this may be helpful for you. And while I normally scoff at the "internet of things" and why do I need a lightbulb with wifi (and color changing lightbulbs, you can probably hear my eyeballs rolling right now), but the function of shifting the kelvin and lumens of light throughout the day is a fantastic idea. Unfortunately that function is still fairly expensive (so, yeah, I won't be getting it soon). Also, it would be good to be able to manually override that function (say, for a reading light). Plus most people use spot lighting, that is they manually turn on and off individual lights and don't light their entire house with general lighting (unless you have a McMansion with recessed fixtures).

Remember Brexit? "More than 3 1/2 years after the landmark Brexit referendum, the United Kingdom will finally leave the European Union at 11 p.m. GMT on Friday." But now we enter the "transition" period. For another year.

How goes the Trade Wars? "U.S. farm bankruptcy rates jumped 20% in 2019 - to an eight-year high - as financial woes in the U.S. agricultural economy continued in spite of massive federal bail-out funding, according to federal court data." Yep. (Grokked from Jim Wright)

"Federal officials called it 'the longest illicit cross-border tunnel ever discovered along the Southwest border.'" A tunnel! Who would have thought.

"America's latest 'national nightmare' will not end when Republicans vote to acquit President Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors, possibly as early as Friday."

"Over two weeks, Chief Justice John Roberts has served as a careful steward of Senate procedures and ensured that the impeachment trial did not descend into nastiness or an outing of the whistleblower whose information months ago triggered this prosecution of President Donald Trump."