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, October 29, 2020

Linkee-poo Thursday Oct 29

Sorry so late, hope you saw the post form late last night.

"Some of the most popular products of biotechnology — corn and cotton plants that have been genetically modified to fend off insects — are no longer offering the same protection from those bugs. Scientists say that the problem results from farmers overusing the crops, and are pushing for new regulations." Wrong. The problem is we thought they would "solve the problem." Build a better shield, someone will build a better sword. It's called evolution.

"Rosenthal found that about 1 in 20 people in the U.S. has SAD. If you have it, you may feel sluggish or depressed, oversleep, overeat, gain weight and be uninterested in doing things you previously enjoyed. Many more people have the winter blues, a milder version of SAD, where you feel like a sadder, sleepier or slower version of yourself." It's that time of year.

"When then-presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke in Manchester, N.H., a week before the 2016 election, he said the opioid crisis was destroying lives and shattering families." That other pandemic the president fumbled.

"'If things do not change, if they continue on the course we’re on, there’s gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations, and deaths,' Fauci said in an interview Wednesday evening on 'The News with Shepard Smith.'"

"Following long negotiations with Germany's 16 state governors, Merkel, who's been urging the public to dial down socializing for weeks, persuaded the governors that closing bars, restaurants, cafes, gyms, swimming pools, theaters, cinemas and concert venues is their best option."

"People's bodies produce an army of immune compounds in response to an infection and some are overwhelming at first, dying off quickly, while others build up more slowly. Measurements that show a waning antibody response in the first months after infection might be measuring this first wave -- but there's a second team building its forces in the background… The new report out Wednesday shows 90% of people who recover from Covid-19 infections keep a stable overall antibody response." Well that's good news.

"The ambitious drive to produce Covid-19 vaccine at warp speed seems to be running up against reality. We all probably need to reset our expectations about how quickly we’re going to be able to be vaccinated." Well, no shit.

"Moving beyond the annualized figure, however, the economy actually grew about 7.4% during July, August and September from the previous quarter, after shrinking 1.2% in the first three months of the year and another 9% in the second quarter."

"Initial weekly U.S. jobless claims came in at 751,000 for the week ending Oct. 24, down 40,000 from the previous week. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected initial jobless claims to come in at 778,000. It was the lowest initial claims total since the week of March 14, when they came in at 282,000. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected 778,000 new claims for last week." Whoohoo, jobless claims were only three-quarters of a million just last week.
"The Small Business Administration may have handed out billions of dollars in loans to businesses that falsely claimed to have been damaged by the coronavirus lockdowns, a report from the agency said on Wednesday… Officials at the agency were so inundated with requests for disaster aid starting last March that they couldn't adequately vet the applicants, according to the report from the Office of SBA Inspector General Michael Ware." Breaking government.

"A Mexican search group said Wednesday that it found 59 bodies in a series of clandestine burial pits in the north-central state of Guanajuato and that more could still be excavated. The head of the official National Search Commission, Karla Quintana, said excavations began a week ago based on a tip from relatives of missing people… Given the deficiencies of local law enforcement in Mexico, relatives of missing people in many states have formed their own search groups, collecting information and exploring possible body dumping sites and clandestine graves."

"Three people have been killed in a knife attack at a church in the French city of Nice, police say… Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said there had been a 'terrorist attack at the heart of the Notre-Dame basilica'."

"PELOSI: '[A]s the coronavirus surges and the stock market plummets, we are still awaiting the Trump Administration's promised responses on multiple items of critical importance.'"

"Within the last six months, as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the US, the Trump administration filed 75 lawsuits to seize private land along the US-Mexico border for the border wall, according to data reviewed by CNN from the Texas Civil Rights Project… In the final days of the presidential election, President Donald Trump, along with senior administration officials, have cited the border wall as a cornerstone accomplishment of his first term." Remember when conservatives were against eminent domain?

Turning the government into propaganda for Trump. "Public relations firms hired by the Department of Health and Human Services vetted political views of hundreds of celebrities for a planned $250 million ad blitz aimed at portraying President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in a positive light, according to documents released Thursday by a House committee." When asked to go with a tagline about how "Helping the President will Help the Country" and there were no takers. Now ask them if they want to make a PSA that's just about protecting people from the coronavirus and see if you get any takers.

"Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney to Donald Trump and former mayor of New York city, threatened to walk out of a tense interview on Fox Business… Recently embarrassed by his appearance in a compromising scene the new Borat movie, Giuliani was being pressed on the provenance of stories about what is claimed to be Hunter Biden’s laptop." You know, when you can't get Fox News to go along with your crazy shit, you really are out there. And of course the reporter is being threatened.

"As President Donald Trump pleaded for the support of suburban women at a Michigan rally Tuesday evening (amidst a pandemic and economic crisis that have caused a mass exodus of women from the workforce), he argued that he deserved their votes because 'we're getting your husbands back to work.' The implications here -- that he believes all women have or should have husbands and that workplaces are the province of men -- are so sexist and outmoded that they will likely alarm American women who have long become accustomed to inappropriate treatment from their commander in chief."

"The Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been mocked for his attempt to explain why he could not produce some documents he had promised relating to Joe Biden… He said the only copy of the papers, which he claimed added to claims about Biden’s son Hunter, had been lost." The dog ate his homework. Hey Tucker, there's this thing called "production" where the offices in NY could do the video/photography of the documents for you.

"Everything about the act of voting in 2020 has been shaken by COVID-19. A record number of ballots have been cast early, either by mail or in person. All over the country, sports teams are turning over their arenas to be used as large-scale, socially distanced polling places… But in some states, the pandemic has also meant a reduction in the number of polling places, a potential roadblock for voters amid a period of already-heightened stress and confusion." Making it harder to vote both by intent, and because of circumstance.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has refused, for a second time, a Republican Party effort to block a three-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Pennsylvania. That means that at least until after the election, the court will not intervene in the way the state conducts its vote count."

"Election officials in many states say it is now too late for voters to return absentee ballots by mail and are encouraging them instead to deliver their ballots by hand or vote in person… State rules differ about how late ballots can be received and still count. Absentee ballots must be received on Election Day in more than two dozen states, including a handful of key swing states such as Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin."

"With Election Day less than a week away, anxiety, distrust and suspicion are running high. Activists and extremists on both the right and left are worried the other side will somehow steal the election, and they're making plans for what to do if they believe that's happening… Experts in global conflict warn that this is a toxic brew and that conditions are ripe for conflict and maybe even violence in the U.S. There's a good chance that no clear winner will emerge on election night, and experts are concerned about what will happen after that — especially if protesters and counterprotesters collide in the streets." For me, it's not about protestors clashing, it's that one side has been hyping themselves up for civil war and if they lose the election, they feel they will have their cause. And yes, I point the finger directly at Russia. This has all the hallmarks of their kind of pys-ops.

About that story last night with the errors in an opinion by Kavanaugh… "Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday night tweaked a line in his controversial opinion on Wisconsin mail-in voting this week, after he received criticism for incorrectly saying Vermont had not changed its election rules due to the Covid-19 pandemic."

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