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, September 3, 2020

LInkee-poo Thursday

"Japan Coast Guard searches for missing ship with 43 sailors and 5,800 cows aboard."

"NASA tests a booster that produces 3 million pounds of thrust." That's a big firecracker.

"The Trump administration will not take part in a global effort to help develop and equitably distribute a COVID-19 vaccine—a decision experts called 'shortsighted' and 'self-defeating'—according to a report by The Washington Post." (Grokked from John)

"One of President Trump's top medical advisers, Scott Atlas, is urging the administration to lean into a national "herd immunity" strategy to combat the pandemic, according to a report by the Washington Post." That is unconscionable. Besides the long term effects of this disease, we now know it's possible to be reinfected (only proven with different strains of the disease as of now, see earlier post). We just passed 6 million infected in this country of approximately 328 million. For baseline herd immunity you need 70% infection/recovery/immunization rates. If you work out the math you end up with over 7 million dead (we're at 200,000 right now).

"Daniel Prude, who suffered from acute mental health problems, was handcuffed naked by officers in the early morning hours of Monday, March 23. He was detained during an 11-minute confrontation involving six police officers and two emergency medical technicians… Force was applied for several minutes to Prude's head and back as he lay on the pavement. He lost consciousness after officers cut off his breathing and was transported to a hospital, where he died a week later."

"U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday said the Justice Department was monitoring the protest movement antifa, saying that it is at the heart of violence in cities around the country… 'I’ve talked to every police chief in every city where there has been major violence and they all have identified antifa as the ramrod for the violence,' Barr said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. 'They are flying around the country. We know people who are flying around the country.'" Wow, you'd think they'd be able to find them easier then. You know, with the no-fly list and having to run all passenger lists through law enforcement.

"'I think the narrative that the police are on some epidemic of shooting unarmed black men is simply a false narrative,' Barr said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. 'The fact is that it is very rare for an unarmed African-American to be shot by a white police officer.'" Like, yeah, there's tens of millions they haven't gotten to yet. But you only need to shoot a few to put fear into the heart of them all.

"Donald Trump knows about convenience. On his trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin… he conveniently found a guy who would praise him and the federal troops in the same breath outside a camera shop that burned down during the protests. Trump introduced him as 'John Rode III, owner of Rode’s Camera Shop' at a round table discussion, and John Rode III, owner of Rode’s Camera Shop, said, 'I just appreciate President Trump coming today, everybody here does. We’re so thankful we got the federal troops here. Once they got here things did calm down quite a bit.' (Democratic governor Tony Evers called in the National Guard.)… John Rode III is not the owner of the shop, however. The guy is the former owner, having sold the place eight years ago, though he stills owns the property on which it sits. The current, actual co-owners, Tom Gram and Paul Willette, declined to take part in the optics play when the White House called on Monday." It's a little splitting hairs, but interesting.

Your Law and Order party… "After Kenosha shootings, former Sheriff David Clarke advises radio listeners on how to get away with killing protesters." There's a population in America that has been fantasizing about killing their fellow Americans for at least 18 years. Here's one. (Grokked from Jim Wright)

"More than 880,000 people filed new applications for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday… The numbers are not directly comparable to previous weeks because of a change the Labor Department made in how it calculates the claims, which are seasonally adjusted. The number appears lower than the previous week’s 1 million claims, but that reflects a change in the Labor Department’s methodology rather than a strengthening of the U.S. labor market, economists say."

"A strange phenomenon has emerged near Amazon.com Inc. delivery stations and Whole Foods stores in the Chicago suburbs: smartphones dangling from trees. Contract delivery drivers are putting them there to get a jump on rivals seeking orders, according to people familiar with the matter." The ingenuity of the American worker. From a management prospective, seriously, you didn't see this coming? (Grokked from John)

"Russia has stepped up its logistic support for private military contractor Wagner Group in Libya with some 338 military cargo flights from Syria in the nine months to July 31 to aid Wagner fighters backing eastern-based Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters on Wednesday."

"At the Voice of America, staffers say the Trump appointee leading their parent agency is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling… 'What we're seeing now is the step-by-step and wholescale dismantling of the institutions that protect the independence and the integrity of our journalism,' says Shawn Powers, until recently the chief strategy officer for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA."

"President Donald Trump suggested that people in North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once by mail and once in person, escalating his attempts to cast confusion and doubt on the validity of the results." Say, isn't encouragement to commit a crime actually a crime? I need to make more popcorn.

"In an attempt to combat efforts to undermine the US presidential election in November, Facebook on Thursday took several steps it says will address concerns about election interference on its platform… But Facebook will continue to allow politicians to run lies in ads through Election Day."

"Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump… The letter is reminiscent of Trump’s effort to put his signature on stimulus checks and send a signed letter to millions of recipients. It’s the latest example of the president blurring his official duties with his reelection campaign, most prominently by hosting Trump’s acceptance speech for the Republican nomination last week on the White House lawn."

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