"Tropical Storm Eta dumped torrents of blustery rain on Florida’s west coast as it moved over Florida after making landfall north of the heavily populated Tampa Bay area Thursday morning."
The nanobots are already here. "If humans ever want to take the unprecedented step of establishing a base on the Moon, Mars, or any other celestial destination, they may need to extract resources from local rocks to support themselves. According to a new study outlined in Nature Communications, we might be able to enlist some very small accomplices to do that grunt work—microbes."
"The Covid-19 crisis in America is so dire now, international aid workers have arrived to help… 'This is a humanitarian disaster -- probably one of the worst stories I've covered in my career here at CNN,' the network's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Thursday." Here it comes.
"A research study of more than 1,800 young Marine recruits has found that symptom-based screening methods like temperature checks and screening questions rarely detect individuals infected with COVID-19 who are not showing any symptoms." Ta-da!
I debated about this article. Mostly it's blah blah blah the president is ignoring his basic job. After four years it seems trite. But for posterity… "President Donald Trump had predicted in almost every campaign rally that the media would stop talking about the coronavirus pandemic the day after the election. But as it turns out, no one is ignoring the worsening tragedy more than the President himself."
"In a statewide address Wednesday evening, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine expanded the statewide mask order issued July 23 and said that if Covid-19 cases continue to surge over the next week, he'll be forced to close bars, restaurants and fitness centers, where the virus is known to spread." Grumpy Grandpa is upset with us. Also, he's going to increase the closures if the positivity rate doesn't decline in the next 5 days. It takes about that long from infection to start showing symptoms and to test positive. The rate isn't going to go down in 5 days. Just impose those increased precautions NOW.
"At least four Russian health care workers given the country's first COVID-19 vaccine have contracted the coronavirus, as its developers claim human trials show their formula is 92% effective. The efficacy claim from the government-run lab that developed the vaccine came on the heels of U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's announcement of data showing that its vaccine, developed in conjunction with a German company, is 90% effective." Waves to my Russian friends (who, along with their Italian partners, have been quiet since the election).
"Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla filed to sell millions of dollars of his company's stock Monday -- the day the pharmaceutical giant announced positive data about its coronavirus vaccine." Jazz hands. "The transaction was part of a regularly scheduled plan set up by Bourla to periodically sell some of his Pfizer shares." Uh huh, un huh, sure. Say, I wonder if the CEO has the ability to time their company's press releases? Hmmm. Although $5.6 million does seem small potatoes in this case.
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "President-elect Joe Biden named Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff on Wednesday – and the longtime Biden aide, who worked as an Obama administration Ebola response coordinator, is on record saying the previous administration handled the H1N1 outbreak poorly." So it's not just Trump or it's all Obama's fault, it's not clear from the article. The problem with this article is this sentence… "Regarding the Ebola response… Klain said at an event earlier this year that some 'wrong choices' were also made, but added that a logistical framework had been put in place to make the problem solving process easier and more transparent." The Obama administration left both a committee at NSC to study and watch for potential disease and a revised playbook to handle the next pandemic. The Trump administration dissolved the committee and tossed the binder with the playbook.
"Louisville Metro Police concealed at least 738,000 records documenting the sexual abuse of Explorer Scouts by two officers — then lied to keep the files from the public, records show… In fact, the department still had at least 738,000 records, which the city allowed to be deleted." The cure for this? Fire the entire police force command structure and make every officer re-apply for their job under a new administration. Would that harm people not involved? Yes it would. But hopefully most would be made right by re-hiring the good cops.
"The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims hit 709,000 for the week ended Nov. 7, down from 757,000 the week before. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 740,000 new claims… This marked the fourth consecutive week that the total declined from the previous period, though claims remain above the pre-coronavirus pandemic record 695,000 in 1982." I'm old enough to remember when having over 200,000 claims in a week was cause for panic.
"A research team at Deutsche Bank proposed that people pay a 5% tax for the 'privilege' of working from home, if they continue to do so after the pandemic, as this could subsidize income lost by lower-earners due to the coronavirus crisis." Because if you're working from home you're not buying gas, lunch or spending money on going to work. It's a completely bullshit premise. You know what, how about we fucking tax the fucking rich (and reclassifying income streams back into actual taxable income instead of excluding it) instead of piling taxes on the middle-class. This is rich people pitting the lower income classes against the mid-income classes while trying to say "don't look at us." How about we reclassify bonus pay, stock incentives, capital gains, pass through, and s-corp distributions as actual income. That will help a hellofa lot more than taxing people who have had to repurpose their homes as their workspaces.
"Democrats and Republicans didn't make a deal to authorize more stimulus money before Tuesday's presidential election, which will leave millions without much-needed funds. Another stimulus package may materialize now that the election is over, but we don't know when it could happen President-elect Biden said, "people need relief right now" during a press conference Tuesday, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel (SIC), a Republican from Kentucky, says he doesn't think the current situation requires a multi-trillion dollar package." No help is coming. The Senate could still take up the bill passed by the House now some 5 months ago.
"U.S.-Russia relations are at a low point, according to the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who told CNBC that Moscow was willing to work with the next U.S. president to improve things." Well there's the opening bid.
"President Trump's fans who don't think Fox News is right-wing enough have another option on cable and satellite: Newsmax TV… And something dramatic has happened in the past week: A big audience has sought out Newsmax TV for the first time." Retreating even farther into their alternate reality.
"As unproven theories and rumors multiplied online during the election, major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube took more aggressive action than ever before to limit the reach of unsubstantiated or false claims that could undermine confidence in the democratic process… But one area that has become increasingly worrisome to misinformation researchers is live-streamed videos, often posted by conservative influencers like Weaver."
"For the past four years, populist and authoritarian leaders from Brazil to the Philippines have looked to President Donald Trump for inspiration and validation for their right-wing agendas. What happens now that their most prominent and outspoken backer has suffered defeat in the U.S. election to President-elect Joe Biden?" You can hear the goose-stepping from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment