So "(Whatever) Strong" signs and campaigns in 2020 have become the same as those yellow-ribbon "support" magnets were post 9/11. It's boring and repetitious, and it's a cultural marker for what we believe. "If we're strong, this won't affect us." Well, everybody, I got some bad news for you. It doesn't matter how strong we are, 1) you can still get sick and die and 2) the world will not be the same as it was before COVID-19, 3) we should strive to make it a better world than what we had before. Times of stress will show us who we really are. We've come together (somewhat), realized the world is smaller than we thought, and we've shown community will overcome individualism (that is, no, we won't have a Mad Max post-apocalyptic future). There is a strong current against that. But then there are always assholes in any society. It's just for some reason in the previous world we decided to give them power. I suggest we don't do that in our new world.
Brian Dennehy, and so it goes.
"The tiny fossil is unassuming, as dinosaur remains go. It is not as big as an Apatosaurus femur or as impressive as a Tyrannosaurus jaw. The object is a just a scant shard of cartilage from the skull of a baby hadrosaur called Hypacrosaurus that perished more than 70 million years ago. But it may contain something never before seen from the depths of the Mesozoic era: degraded remnants of dinosaur DNA." You must not read from the book!
I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as if… "The 2020 San Diego Comic-Con, the largest fan convention in North America and one of the biggest promotional events of the year, has been canceled in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers announced on Friday. The event, which pulls in upwards of 130,000 participants each year, was scheduled to be held from July 23–26."
"NASA and SpaceX are targeting May 27 for the launch of Demo-2, the first launch of NASA astronauts from the U.S. since 2011 and the first crewed launch for Elon Musk’s space company." I would so want to be at that launch.
"Being able to test for coronavirus infections is a critical component to reopening society — even a little bit — after the initial wave of COVID-19. So there is an urgent need for faster, cheaper tests than the ones available at present."
"How many people have the coronavirus in the United States? More than two months into the country’s outbreak, this remains the most important question for its people, schools, hospitals, and businesses. It is also still among the hardest to answer. At least 630,000 people nationwide now have test-confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, a state-by-state tally conducted by more than 100 volunteers and experts. But an overwhelming body of evidence shows that this is an undercount."
"When Jones' test came back positive as well, he joined a growing club: health care workers in the metro Detroit area who have contracted COVID-19… Nobody knows how many, exactly, because some health systems aren't sharing or collecting that data… But more than 2,600 health care workers in the area either have been out sick with symptoms similar to those of COVID-19 or have tested positive for the coronavirus." Also a little about "redeployments." Yes, there is a high likelihood I will have to work shifts in other departments.
"In South Korea, health officials are trying to solve a mystery: why 163 people who recovered from coronavirus have retested positive, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC)… KCDC deputy director Kwon Joon-wook said that so far, there's no indication that patients who retest positive are contagious, even though about 44% of them showed mild symptoms." Okay, that's new. And the answer to almost all the questions is now, "we don't know."
"In this chaotic effort to obtain supplies, the Trump administration awarded a $55 million contract to Panthera Worldwide LLC, a company with no expertise in the world of medical equipment, for N95 masks… Panthera's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last fall, and one of its owners last year said it'd had no employees since May 2018… The Post reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was paying Panthera about $5.50 per mask, decidedly more than what the government pays companies with an established background in producing medical supplies such as 3M, which charges about $0.63 per mask." Dumbest timeline ever.
"Protestors — most of whom were not wearing masks — could be heard chanting, 'No foreign vaccinations' in the downtown beach area at Main Street and Walnut Avenue… 'We’re here in defiance of Gavin Newsom and his socialist agenda to ruin our economy,' said a man hosting a livestream of the event on Facebook. 'We’re definitely not practicing social distancing, which is all right in my book. Believe in Jesus — you won’t fear death.'" Remember when I said the best inoculation against the information warfare going on was education. It would also help with this. Tell ya what, bucko, we'll ask you that question again just before we slide the trach down your throat. The problem here is because of the rest of us staying home and observing social distancing, these people are safer and many probably won't become sick from this demonstration. Unless there are asymptomatic carriers in their group and this coronavirus is actually transmissible airborne. Also, these groups are being sponsored by some of the rich, in some cases by the DeVos family, and other cases by Americans for Prosperity and like groups. And you'll note the people bankrolling these aren't out there protesting but staying at home. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
"As Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott formulated a plan this week to reopen the world's 10th largest economy, he had to strike a delicate balance between two opposing forces: a push from the state's powerful business community eager to get back to work and health professionals and economists warning that a premature restart could be deadly." Guess which side he'll choose. "At the same time, it's only been two weeks since Abbott issued his stay-at-home order. Texas remains woefully behind many of the nation's other largest states in the number of coronavirus tests conducted, which made some of Abbott's early optimism about re-opening all the more striking."
"At first glance, the republic of Georgia has been a success story in the fight against the novel coronavirus: the outbreak in the small Caucasus nation has remained limited, with just 370 official cases as of Friday morning… But Georgia now faces a serious test. Easter will be celebrated this Sunday on the Eastern Christian calendar, and the powerful Georgian Orthodox Church is planning major celebrations that public health officials say could prove deadly." When you're successful, it looks like you overreacted.
"U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has faced criticism over a shortfall in coronavirus testing capacity, said on Friday that individual states were responsible for developing testing capabilities." So a complete reversal from "I'm in charge" to "what could we do, it wasn't our call?" So, basically, after months of saying, "we have it under control" and "look, we've got all the advisors making policy" the Trump administration is now pivoting to "you're on your own." Failure of leadership.
"Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday large gathering such as concerts and sporting events likely won’t resume until 2021." Makes jazz hands.
"'We find that in the absence of other interventions, this kind of on-again off-again approach we call intermittent social distancing, may have to last into mid-2022,' Christine Tedijanto, coauthor of the study, 'Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the postpandemic period,' told AccuWeather over a Skype interview." Ta-da!
"President Donald Trump inaccurately declared at Thursday's White House coronavirus briefing that some states do not have "any problem" with the virus's outbreak, minimizing the situation even in the least-affected statesz… Trump also repeated his incorrect suggestion that he has the power to decide when governors lift their pandemic-related restrictions. And he argued that 'people should have told us' about the virus, omitting the fact that he continued to downplay the virus for weeks after public warnings."
"For months, authorities say, 36-year-old white supremacist Timothy Wilson amassed bomb-making supplies and talked about attacking a synagogue, a mosque or a majority-black elementary school… Then the coronavirus hit the United States, giving Wilson a new target — and a deadline. The FBI says Wilson planned to bomb a Missouri hospital with COVID-19 patients inside, and he wanted to do it before Kansas City's stay-at-home order took effect at midnight on March 24."
"President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program to help farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic through a package that will include direct payment and mass purchases of produce, meat and other products." And then what?
"The Trump administration will spend $19 billion on a relief program for farmers struggling during the novel coronavirus pandemic, including a new approach to send billions of dollars of agricultural products to food banks and other organizations around the country… 'Our farmers, ranchers, we have, these are great people. Great Americans. Never complain. They never complain. They just do what they have to do. The program will include direct payments to farmers as well as mass purchases of dairy, meat and agricultural produce, to get that food to the people in need,' President Donald Trump said at Friday night’s briefing." Looks around at local farmers I know, they complain all the fucking time. Also, AG Sec Sonny Perdue said, "'If you don't mind the pun, this is an out of the box example of what we're trying to do. It is new and different. We've never done this before but in realigning the supply… He did not directly answer if this was a version of the Harvest Box program the department has proposed in previous budgets, to significant scrutiny from lawmakers, advocates, and food bank operators, and if that will slow down the process." They still have no clue as to how government actually works and what programs they oversee.
"A pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., has became a hot spot of coronavirus transmission and now workers and their advocates say the company failed to communicate the risks of possible exposure and waited too long to implement safety measures." Rhut rho.
"Amazon.com Inc has started to use thermal cameras at its warehouses to speed up screening for feverish workers who could be infected with the coronavirus, employees told Reuters." Panopticon warning.
"But in the past four weeks, a total of 22 million have filed jobless claims — nearly wiping out all the job gains since the Great Recession." Time of your life, huh kid?
"Sen. Richard Burr's sale of up to $1.7 million in stocks shortly before the recent market crash was one of the lawmaker's only market-beating trades since record keeping began eight years ago, according to a new study… The new analysis, presented by researchers at Dartmouth College, shows just how unusual the North Carolina senator's transactions were. On a single day, Feb. 13 of this year, Burr unloaded a significant portion of his net worth — a departure from his typically low-volume trading history." I'm shocked to find gambling going on here.
"Did gender keep Democratic women from winning the primary?" Yes.
"President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to have had more sustained contact with each other in the past two weeks than at any time since 2016, as the Kremlin tries to use the coronavirus pandemic and close personal ties between the two leaders to normalize long-strained relations with Washington." I don't think what we're seeing is "normalization."
"A federal judge has denied Roger Stone's bid for a new trial, rejecting his claims that alleged misconduct and political bias on the part of the jury foreperson tainted the proceedings." Wow, Judge Jackson has no fucks to give anymore.
"All 12 of Roger Stone's jurors wrote in a series of powerful, anonymized statements this week that they feel harassed, afraid and do not want more information about them revealed to the public, especially after President Donald Trump and right-wing media criticized them for their conviction of the longtime Trump friend."
"Fact check: Trump did host rallies, play golf as as COVID-19 outbreak ramped up." With a timeline.
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