I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Monday, October 4, 2021

Linkee-poo Monday Oct 4

"Do readers automagically buy a book on the first reading of your best and most fabulous copy? Sometimes! In any case, writing good marketing copy helps your work find its people, and that is the name of the game… What does marketing copy include?"

"An enormous comet — possibly the largest one ever detected — is barreling toward the inner solar system with an estimated arrival time of 10 years from now, according to new research published on the preprint server arXiv.org."

"An oil pipeline off the coast of Southern California has spewed more than 100,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean, coating local wildlife habitats, shutting down a swath of popular beaches and potentially harming human health… The leak appears to have stopped and oil removal efforts are underway, officials said Sunday."

"This will be the first time pharmacy companies, in this case CVS, Walgreens, Giant Eagle and Walmart, have gone to trial to defend themselves in the nation’s ongoing legal reckoning over the opioid crisis. The trial, which is expected to last around six weeks, could set the tone for similar lawsuits against retail pharmacy chains by government entities across the U.S."

"As the holidays creep closer, the Centers for Disease Control has issued new guidance for those planning on celebrating in person… Their first tip is urging all to get vaccinated." Wear a mask.

"He was caring for double the usual number of critically ill patients, and navigating hospital halls that looked more like construction zones, with giant fans and plastic tubing blowing a deafening level of extra ventilation. He couldn't hear his patients, or see them through the giant wooden doors of the negative pressure chambers… Burnout is a common term many associate with sheer exhaustion. But the World Health Organization says it's also characterized by greater cynicism and reduced effectiveness at work. It was a huge problem in health care long before the pandemic. But now the short staffing and crushing and unpredictable workload is contributing to epidemic levels of burnout." Can confirm.

"The United States reached its latest heartbreaking pandemic milestone Friday, eclipsing 700,000 deaths from COVID-19 just as the surge from the delta variant is starting to slow down and give overwhelmed hospitals some relief."

"Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Friday denied an emergency appeal from a group of teachers to block New York City's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public school teachers and other staff from going into effect… The teachers had filed for the injunction with Sotomayor on Thursday, in an effort to keep the mandate from going into effect Friday."

"More and more employers are ordering workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 without the option of getting tested instead. Now workers are pushing back… In Washington, D.C., more than 400 fire and emergency medical workers applied for religious exemptions to the city's vaccine mandate. In Los Angeles, roughly a quarter of the police department is expected to seek religious exemptions."

"The data backs up what a recent poll found: While full approval might matter to some unvaccinated Americans, it's likely not going to be the sole reason unvaccinated Americans will roll up their sleeves." As someone who has worked in marketing and advertising here's a little well known secret, people lie to pollsters. People don't want to get vaccinated because they're misinformed, or they're selfish. Everything else is window dressing and making excuses.

"The Broadway hit 'Aladdin' is trying to keep COVID-19 contained… Disney Theatrical Productions said it will cancel Friday's performance and all shows until Oct. 12 after 'additional breakthrough COVID-19 cases were detected.'"

"Deaths involving police have been greatly undercounted in the United States, and African American people die in such encounters at 3.5 times the rate of whites, according to a new analysis by public health researchers… In an article published Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet, researchers found that deaths from police violence between 1980 and 2018 were misclassified by 55.5% in the U.S. National Vital Statistics System, which tracks information from death certificates."

"Brexit was named as one of the key reasons for the shortage of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers, although problems in the industry go deeper and are found across Europe, industry experts noted. A survey of 616 industry figures in June by the Road Haulage Association in the U.K. found that retirement, changing working rules, the Covid pandemic, low pay and drivers leaving the industry were among the reasons for the lack of operators."

"'China made commitments intended to benefit certain American industries, including agriculture that we must enforce,' Tai is expected to say… CNBC reported last week that the top trade advisor would announce that Beijing has not complied with the phase one deal that was reached under former President Donald Trump’s administration."

"Frances Haugen was identified in a '60 Minutes' interview Sunday as the woman who anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement that the company’s own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation."

"She secretly copied tens of thousands of pages of Facebook internal research. She says evidence shows that the company is lying to the public about making significant progress against hate, violence and misinformation. One study she found, from this year, says, 'we estimate that we may action as little as 3-5% of hate and about 6-tenths of 1% of V & I [violence and incitement] on Facebook despite being the best in the world at it.'"

"The exposé, dubbed the 'Pandora Papers,' shows how the world's wealthy hide their money and assets from authorities, their creditors and the public using a network of lawyers and financial institutions that promise secrecy."

The Guardian's report… "The Pandora papers reveal the inner workings of what is a shadow financial world, providing a rare window into the hidden operations of a global offshore economy that enables some of the world’s richest people to hide their wealth and in some cases pay little or no tax."

"But even as it digs into what exactly happened and at whose behest, the select committee is preparing to slam into a wall of resistance in a few days — an anticipated effort by Trump and his allies to defy the Jan. 6 probe… The former president has a fast-approaching deadline to attempt to block the National Archives from releasing records from his White House that could shed light on his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. And some of Trump’s closest aides have until Thursday to comply with a committee subpoena for their own records."

"As Donald Trump rose to power, the Claremont universe—which sponsors fellowships and publications, including the Claremont Review of Books and The American Mind—rose with him, publishing essays that seemed to capture why the president appealed to so many Americans and attempting to map a political philosophy onto his presidency. Williams and his cohort are on a mission to tear down and remake the right; they believe that America has been riven into two fundamentally different countries, not least because of the rise of secularism. 'The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people,' Williams told me. It’s possible that violence lies ahead. 'I worry about such a conflict,' Williams told me. 'The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs.'"

An On the Media podcast which discusses the influence of the Claremont Institute (the episode is titled "From Birtherism to Election Theft")… "It also offers a new opportunity to examine the activities of John Eastman, who entered the spotlight in 2020 when he published an op-ed in Newsweek making the false claim that Kamala Harris was ineligible for the Vice Presidency. Back then, Brooke spoke with Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who described the origins of this birtherism falsehood and how Eastman and his organization, the Claremont Institute, used the media to spread it."

"Democratic hopes for passing big legislation through the Senate rely on Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both have made things difficult for Senate Democrats because they are moderates who have been hesitant to pass big spending packages… But while Democrats are lucky to have a Democrat of any ideological persuasion representing West Virginia, they may not be getting the best bang for their buck from Sinema." They're not moderates, they've been bought by big industry that worked hard to peel off the vulnerable, the ones with conflicts of interest, and the easily persuadable.

"A video of Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) being confronted by a youth activist who followed her into the bathroom has been viewed 4 million times on social media… Shared on the Twitter account for community activist group Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), the clip showed youth activists following Sinema around Arizona State University on Sunday."

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