"Tropical Storm Fred is forecast to bring heavy rain and wind to Florida on Friday night or early Saturday morning, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is warning residents not to let their guard down. On Wednesday, DeSantis tweeted, 'While it’s too soon to determine exact impacts, Floridians should review their disaster plans.'"
"Much of the mainland U.S. is under heat advisories Thursday morning, with dangerously high temperatures expected to last until the weekend… Before relief arrives, the National Weather Service is warning millions of Americans that they'll have to suffer through temperatures that feel hotter than 100 degrees Fahrenheit."
"The Society of Authors (SoA) has asked the writers it represents “to be mindful of privilege and of the impact of what they create, do and say” in an email to committee members responding to the recent criticism of Kate Clanchy’s 2019 Orwell-prize winning book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me."
"Authorities in northern Germany appealed to thousands of people on Tuesday to get another shot of COVID-19 vaccine after a police investigation found that a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution." (Grokked from Seanan McGuire)
"Students who use phony COVID-19 vaccine cards to skirt mandates at U.S. colleges and universities are risking disastrous consequences, according to school officials and other experts."
"Texas Governor Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday filed a petition to halt a judge's order requiring face masks inside schools and businesses in Dallas County. The order was signed despite Abbott previously banning government entities and officials from implementing mask mandates in Texas."
"The battle over school masking reached a fever pitch as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration took aim at two school districts over new mandates that fly in the face of his executive order seeking to prevent them… In letters to leaders of the public schools in Alachua and Leon counties, the state Education Department said the districts are being investigated for noncompliance because their new mask policies don't provide parents total freedom to opt their children out of in-school masking. The districts were threatened with the possibility of having funding equal to the salaries of their superintendents and school board members withheld — more than $300,000." This is trolling politics, it wastes everyone's time, money, and energy fighting over it to distract from the bigger problems. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be fought, but just so everyone knows that this is a purposeful trap to drain everyone's energy from fighting the larger issues.
"But the tax break did more than just give a lucrative, and legal, perk to Johnson’s donors. In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows. Republican and Democratic tycoons alike saw their tax bills chopped by tens of millions, among them: media magnate and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; the Bechtel family, owners of the engineering firm that bears their name; and the heirs of the late Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan."
"A criminal complaint alleges that he told the FBI that he killed his children because he believed they 'were going to grow into monsters' and that conspiracy theories led him to believe that his wife had passed down her 'serpent DNA' to the children." More than likely this whackaloon would have killed his children anyway, even without the conspiracy theories, but damn.
"The Taliban captured a provincial capital near Kabul on Thursday, the 10th the insurgents have taken over a weeklong blitz across Afghanistan as the U.S. and NATO prepare to withdraw entirely from the country after decades of war."
"President Biden promised to put U.S. diplomacy back in the 'hands of genuine professionals,' but more than six months into his administration only one of his ambassadors to another country has been confirmed… That's raising concerns about how effectively the administration is conducting foreign policy — and the message such a diplomatic vacuum sends to the global community." Conservatives, still intentionally breaking government.
"The House will return to Washington later this month to vote on updated legislation to restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013. Across the Capitol, a small group of Democratic senators are closing in on a compromise on separate but related set of more immediate voting reforms they think could unify the party, if not get any new Republican votes."
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Linkee-poo Wednesday Aug 11
Neal Conan, and so it goes.
"People in the Pacific Northwest braced for another major, multiday heat wave starting Wednesday, just over a month after record-shattering hot weather killed hundreds of the region's most vulnerable people when temperatures soared to 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 Celsius)."
"Like a car in the garage for repairs, Boeing’s Starliner is back in the hangar as engineering teams scramble to fix a problem related to the spacecraft’s propulsion system."
"A new preprint study that raises concerns about the mRNA vaccines' effectiveness against Delta — particularly Pfizer's — has already grabbed the attention of top Biden administration officials… The study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July, when the Delta variant was dominant. 'If that's not a wakeup call, I don't know what is,' a senior Biden official told Axios." It hasn't gone through peer-review, and the article is a little alarmist, but welcome to evolution, everybody.
"The rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hot spots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout and lucrative out-of-state temporary gigs." Ta-da! Wow, that's a lot of words to say, "hospitals are losing staff because of poor working conditions and over-stretched employees, and it's coming just as this next spike is hitting." And notice how this is being blamed on "well, traveling nurses make so much more that of course nurses are leaving to get that sweet mullah." No. No they're not. Nurses are leaving the profession.
Everything is fine in Florida… "The federal government has sent hundreds of ventilators and other equipment this week to help Florida respond to a record number of Covid hospitalizations… The devices, which came from the federal government's Strategic National Stockpile, included 200 ventilators and 100 smaller breathing devices and related supplies, said an official of the Department of Health and Human Services." Just fine.
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday updated its COVID-19 tracker for Florida over the past few days after the state’s department of health appealed publically (SIC) for an update… The CDC told Fox News in an email on Tuesday that it was working with the state’s health department to correct the information." Note the people reported with COVID-19 still have COVID-19, it's just the CDC reported several days together (which they probably received the information on the same day). But Fox News spins this to, "You can't trust the CDC to report the correct number."
A local school discussion over masking. Yes, these people will feed their kids to Moloch willingly, in the name of "freedom."
"Chickenpox is one of the most contagious viruses known. Each individual can spread the virus to as many as '90% of the people close to that person,' the CDC reports… Is the delta variant that contagious as well?… The short answer is no, says evolutionary biologist and biostatistician Tom Wenseleers at the University of Leuven in Belgium."
"A lot of workers are getting wage hikes this year as employers compete for scarce labor. But it's not all good news for workers, or for the economy: Some businesses are raising prices to offset the wage hikes, contributing to surging inflation and eroding some of the benefits from that higher pay." Yes, I'm sure that's what's driving inflation and not the world-wide shipping and supply chain problems.
"Prices that Americans pay for everyday goods and services accelerated in July as pent-up demand for travel and restaurants kept inflation hot, but about where economists had expected… So-called core inflation, which excludes energy and food, rose by 0.3% last month, shy of a forecasted 0.4% increase and well below June’s rise of 0.9%. The core figure is up 4.3% over the last year, a slight deceleration from June’s 4.5%."
"Google employees in the US who opt to work from home permanently may get a pay cut… The technology giant has developed a pay calculator that lets employees see the effects of working remotely or moving offices… Some remote employees, especially those with a long commute, could have their pay cut without changing address." Understand that employees were clamoring to get back to the office, companies would be cutting the pay of those coming into the office instead. This isn't an issue of punishment, this is an issue of companies always wanting to cut payroll. Does Google have to do it? Not in the slightest. But if they want to increase profits and pay their top execs more, they most definitely will.
"Southwest Airlines lowered its revenue and profit forecast Wednesday, blaming the delta variant for weaker bookings… The airline is the second carrier in less than a week to warn that the fast-spreading Covid-19 variant will weigh on results. Frontier Airlines on Thursday said it would break even, at best, this quarter because of the variant."
"A Chinese court has sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, more than two years after he was first detained." Spavor was one of two Canadians arrested in China after Canada detained Huawei's Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the US.
"US President Joe Biden has said he does not regret his move to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, as Taliban militants continue to make rapid advances… Mr Biden urged Afghanistan's leaders to unite and 'fight for their nation'… A US-led military campaign began in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on American soil - but now most of the foreign troops have pulled out."
"A militant leader in Ethiopia says his group has struck a military alliance with the Tigray forces now pressing toward the country’s capital, as the conflict that erupted in the Tigray region last year spreads into other parts of Africa’s second-most populous country."
"Multiple studies have suggested that digital technology is shortening our attention spans and making us more distracted. What if it’s also making us less empathetic, less prone to ethical action? What if it’s degrading our capacity for moral attention — the capacity to notice the morally salient features of a given situation so that we can respond appropriately?" tl/dr (just kidding)
"Senate Democrats approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution early Wednesday morning, setting the stage in the weeks and months to come for the party to craft and attempt to pass a sweeping economic package expanding the social safety net that President Joe Biden has made a signature agenda item without the threat of a filibuster from Republicans who oppose it."
"The price tag is currently set at $3.5 trillion. The plan calls for the investments to be offset by a combination of new tax revenues, health care savings and long-term economic growth. It calls for raising money through IRS enforcement and proposes a new fee on carbon pollution. The plan prohibits tax increases on families making under $400,000 a year, small businesses and family farms."
"Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats to advance their signature voting and elections overhaul bill in the early hours of Wednesday morning… This was an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats in the chamber to put Republicans on the record on the voting rights package and to demonstrate that they are still trying to pass it despite stiff GOP opposition, a priority for the party and the Biden administration."
"An Arizona lawmaker has resigned after he was accused of having sexual contact with a minor in 2019… Republican Senate President Karen Fann and Democratic Leader Rebecca Rios issued a joint statement accepting the resignation of state Sen. Otoniel 'Tony' Navarrete on Tuesday." Doesn't matter which party they belong to, when the accusations are credible (and that line can be debated), this is what should happen.
"For generations, American shoppers have been trained to be nightmares. The pandemic has shown just how desperately the consumer class clings to the feeling of being served."
"New York federal prosecutors came to suspect the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, lied in testimony during their investigation of former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen three years ago, according to four people familiar with prosecutors' thinking… Despite their suspicions, federal prosecutors did not pursue perjury charges against Weisselberg, but his past interactions with them could now become relevant to the Manhattan district attorney's office as it seeks his cooperation in a tax fraud case brought against Weisselberg and the company last month."
"People in the Pacific Northwest braced for another major, multiday heat wave starting Wednesday, just over a month after record-shattering hot weather killed hundreds of the region's most vulnerable people when temperatures soared to 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 Celsius)."
"Like a car in the garage for repairs, Boeing’s Starliner is back in the hangar as engineering teams scramble to fix a problem related to the spacecraft’s propulsion system."
"A new preprint study that raises concerns about the mRNA vaccines' effectiveness against Delta — particularly Pfizer's — has already grabbed the attention of top Biden administration officials… The study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July, when the Delta variant was dominant. 'If that's not a wakeup call, I don't know what is,' a senior Biden official told Axios." It hasn't gone through peer-review, and the article is a little alarmist, but welcome to evolution, everybody.
"The rapidly escalating surge in COVID-19 infections across the U.S. has caused a shortage of nurses and other front-line staff in virus hot spots that can no longer keep up with the flood of unvaccinated patients and are losing workers to burnout and lucrative out-of-state temporary gigs." Ta-da! Wow, that's a lot of words to say, "hospitals are losing staff because of poor working conditions and over-stretched employees, and it's coming just as this next spike is hitting." And notice how this is being blamed on "well, traveling nurses make so much more that of course nurses are leaving to get that sweet mullah." No. No they're not. Nurses are leaving the profession.
Everything is fine in Florida… "The federal government has sent hundreds of ventilators and other equipment this week to help Florida respond to a record number of Covid hospitalizations… The devices, which came from the federal government's Strategic National Stockpile, included 200 ventilators and 100 smaller breathing devices and related supplies, said an official of the Department of Health and Human Services." Just fine.
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday updated its COVID-19 tracker for Florida over the past few days after the state’s department of health appealed publically (SIC) for an update… The CDC told Fox News in an email on Tuesday that it was working with the state’s health department to correct the information." Note the people reported with COVID-19 still have COVID-19, it's just the CDC reported several days together (which they probably received the information on the same day). But Fox News spins this to, "You can't trust the CDC to report the correct number."
A local school discussion over masking. Yes, these people will feed their kids to Moloch willingly, in the name of "freedom."
"Chickenpox is one of the most contagious viruses known. Each individual can spread the virus to as many as '90% of the people close to that person,' the CDC reports… Is the delta variant that contagious as well?… The short answer is no, says evolutionary biologist and biostatistician Tom Wenseleers at the University of Leuven in Belgium."
"A lot of workers are getting wage hikes this year as employers compete for scarce labor. But it's not all good news for workers, or for the economy: Some businesses are raising prices to offset the wage hikes, contributing to surging inflation and eroding some of the benefits from that higher pay." Yes, I'm sure that's what's driving inflation and not the world-wide shipping and supply chain problems.
"Prices that Americans pay for everyday goods and services accelerated in July as pent-up demand for travel and restaurants kept inflation hot, but about where economists had expected… So-called core inflation, which excludes energy and food, rose by 0.3% last month, shy of a forecasted 0.4% increase and well below June’s rise of 0.9%. The core figure is up 4.3% over the last year, a slight deceleration from June’s 4.5%."
"Google employees in the US who opt to work from home permanently may get a pay cut… The technology giant has developed a pay calculator that lets employees see the effects of working remotely or moving offices… Some remote employees, especially those with a long commute, could have their pay cut without changing address." Understand that employees were clamoring to get back to the office, companies would be cutting the pay of those coming into the office instead. This isn't an issue of punishment, this is an issue of companies always wanting to cut payroll. Does Google have to do it? Not in the slightest. But if they want to increase profits and pay their top execs more, they most definitely will.
"Southwest Airlines lowered its revenue and profit forecast Wednesday, blaming the delta variant for weaker bookings… The airline is the second carrier in less than a week to warn that the fast-spreading Covid-19 variant will weigh on results. Frontier Airlines on Thursday said it would break even, at best, this quarter because of the variant."
"A Chinese court has sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, more than two years after he was first detained." Spavor was one of two Canadians arrested in China after Canada detained Huawei's Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the US.
"US President Joe Biden has said he does not regret his move to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, as Taliban militants continue to make rapid advances… Mr Biden urged Afghanistan's leaders to unite and 'fight for their nation'… A US-led military campaign began in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on American soil - but now most of the foreign troops have pulled out."
"A militant leader in Ethiopia says his group has struck a military alliance with the Tigray forces now pressing toward the country’s capital, as the conflict that erupted in the Tigray region last year spreads into other parts of Africa’s second-most populous country."
"Multiple studies have suggested that digital technology is shortening our attention spans and making us more distracted. What if it’s also making us less empathetic, less prone to ethical action? What if it’s degrading our capacity for moral attention — the capacity to notice the morally salient features of a given situation so that we can respond appropriately?" tl/dr (just kidding)
"Senate Democrats approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution early Wednesday morning, setting the stage in the weeks and months to come for the party to craft and attempt to pass a sweeping economic package expanding the social safety net that President Joe Biden has made a signature agenda item without the threat of a filibuster from Republicans who oppose it."
"The price tag is currently set at $3.5 trillion. The plan calls for the investments to be offset by a combination of new tax revenues, health care savings and long-term economic growth. It calls for raising money through IRS enforcement and proposes a new fee on carbon pollution. The plan prohibits tax increases on families making under $400,000 a year, small businesses and family farms."
"Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats to advance their signature voting and elections overhaul bill in the early hours of Wednesday morning… This was an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats in the chamber to put Republicans on the record on the voting rights package and to demonstrate that they are still trying to pass it despite stiff GOP opposition, a priority for the party and the Biden administration."
"An Arizona lawmaker has resigned after he was accused of having sexual contact with a minor in 2019… Republican Senate President Karen Fann and Democratic Leader Rebecca Rios issued a joint statement accepting the resignation of state Sen. Otoniel 'Tony' Navarrete on Tuesday." Doesn't matter which party they belong to, when the accusations are credible (and that line can be debated), this is what should happen.
"For generations, American shoppers have been trained to be nightmares. The pandemic has shown just how desperately the consumer class clings to the feeling of being served."
"New York federal prosecutors came to suspect the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, lied in testimony during their investigation of former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen three years ago, according to four people familiar with prosecutors' thinking… Despite their suspicions, federal prosecutors did not pursue perjury charges against Weisselberg, but his past interactions with them could now become relevant to the Manhattan district attorney's office as it seeks his cooperation in a tax fraud case brought against Weisselberg and the company last month."
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Linkee-poo Tuesday Aug 10
"The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has resigned following an investigation by the state attorney general that found he sexually harassed multiple women, most of whom worked for him, and also retaliated after some made complaints."
"A disturbance in the Caribbean is expected to become Tropical Storm Fred on Tuesday before it heads toward Florida, the National Hurricane Center said."
"The best-known meteor shower of the year should be a good time this year on the peak night of August 11, with no bright Moon to interfere."
"In the boglands of the northwestern United States and Canada, an unassuming plant has been trapping and eating insects, totally unbeknownst to science. Today, researchers report that Triantha occidentalis is now the 12th known independent evolution of carnivory—the consumption of animal flesh—in the plant kingdom."
"Analysis of ancient DNA found in Finland has unveiled a surprise a century later – the remains of an early medieval warrior thought to be female may have been nonbinary… The new findings challenge previous ideas about gender roles and expression and suggest that nonbinary people were valued and respected members of their communities, researchers concluded in their study, published in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Archaeology."
"An elephant herd that fascinated locals and people around the world by making a yearlong journey into urbanized southwest China, raiding farms and even a retirement home for food, appears finally to be headed home."
"The U.S. health care system ranked last among 11 wealthy countries despite spending the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund… Researchers behind the report surveyed tens of thousands of patients and doctors in each country and used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization (WHO)… The report considered 71 performance measures that fell under five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes." Ta-da!
"A fourth person in a fourth US state has mysteriously contracted a deadly South Asian bacterium without leaving the continental US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday… Two of the four cases have been fatal, including the latest one identified in Georgia late last month during a post-mortem exam."
"Philip Morris's unlikely attempt to buy an asthma medicine company has forced a rare auction process… The tobacco giant has been locked in a £1bn bidding war with US private equity firm Carlyle over drugmaker Vectura… Now the regulator, the Takeover Panel, has given them a week to make their best offers for the FTSE 250 firm."
"It's inevitable that when kids mix — returning from camp or heading back to school — germs spread. And in a pandemic year fueled by the delta variant, some of those germs may cause COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advice for keeping your child protected from this highly contagious version of the coronavirus now and this fall: Mask up in schools and other crowded venues, and make sure everyone age 12 and older in the family gets a COVID-19 shot."
"More kids are landing in the hospital due to COVID and it's not yet clear if it's because the Delta variant is causing more serious illness in kids… Why it matters: Hospitals are raising concerns about the increasing impact of COVID on kids at the same time schools around the country are preparing to head back for in-person instruction — many without the protection of vaccination or mask mandates."
"More than 3,000 Louisiana children tested positive for the coronavirus in just a few days' time… According to Edwards, more than 6,000 Louisiana children now have COVID-19. Edwards said this is the most positive cases in children since the pandemic began."
"Arkansas on Monday set a new record for the number of people in the state hospitalized because of COVID-19 as its coronavirus surge continued." I'm shocked, I'm sure you are.
"Most Florida children are returning to school in areas where COVID-19 outbreaks are far more intense than they were when school started last year… In most counties, cases are at least four times higher than a year ago, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Five counties report a more than tenfold increase."
"As the majority of Florida's K-12 schools prepare to reopen campuses at full capacity this week — many of them on Tuesday — Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students." Stop making the guv look bad.
"People who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are highly protected against severe infection, hospitalization and death caused by the virus. But coronavirus cases among the fully vaccinated — so-called 'breakthrough' Covid cases — are still being seen among those who have had two doses… While it’s rare for vaccinated people in the U.S. or Europe to get sick from Covid, breakthrough cases are happening for a number of reasons, experts note… For a start, none of the vaccines being deployed in the U.S. or Europe are 100% effective at preventing infection." You might also remember me pointing out that the vaccines don't prevent disease so much as they prevent you from having a sever reaction to the disease.
"Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo Monday saying he will ask the president to approve making COVID-19 vaccines a requirement by mid-September. 'I have every confidence that Service leadership and your commanders will implement this new vaccination program with professionalism, skill, and compassion,' Austin said in the memo." Waits to hear how our brave men and women should have to be forced to :: checks notes :: protect themselves and others.
"Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday the current surge in Covid infections caused by the more contagious delta variant may be the 'final wave' of the virus in the United States." Hahahahaha. Every year a few Americans die from the bubonic plague (aka, the Black Death).
"As idiotic and abhorrent as all of the above is, it's not an exaggeration of the messages being spread by a growing group of Darwin Award finalists on the Internet—that is, germ theory denialists. Yes, you read that correctly: germ theory denialists—also known as people who don't believe that pathogenic viruses and bacteria can cause disease." There aren't enough eyerolls for these people.
"Half of small business owners (50%) say it’s gotten harder to find qualified people to hire compared to a year ago, according to the Q3 2021 CNBC | Momentive Small Business Survey. Almost one-third (31%) say they have open roles they have not been able to fill for at least three months, up from 24% last quarter and 16% in Q1 2020… The labor situation has resulted in 41% of small business owners saying they are currently experiencing a rising cost in wages, according to the new CNBC | Momentive survey, which was conducted between July 26 and August 3 among over 2,000 small businesses across the U.S."
But… "About 3.4 million Americans were long-term unemployed in July, a reduction of about 560,000 from the prior month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics… However, the figure remains elevated relative to pre-pandemic levels. About 2 in 5 jobless individuals are long-term unemployed, meaning they’ve been out of work at least six months."
"The U.S. labor market hit a new milestone recently: For the first time, average pay in restaurants and supermarkets climbed above $15 an hour. Wages have been rising rapidly as the economy reopens and businesses struggle to hire enough workers. Some of the biggest gains have gone to workers in some of the lowest-paying industries." They said it was impossible, that it would destroy the economy. But suddenly, when they had to do it, it wasn't all that hard to get there. But… "Economists caution that a higher average wage is not the same as a $15 minimum wage. Half of workers in these industries are still making below $15 an hour."
"A call about an 'active shooter' at a school in northeastern Tennessee forced an emergency evacuation on Tuesday morning, but there are no injuries or a suspect, the Hawkins County Sheriff's Office said in a preliminary statement." The new bomb threat.
"The U.S. Postal Service will pay $120 million over the next five years to a major logistics contractor that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously helped lead and with which his family maintains financial ties, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure statements and a federal contracting database." Fire DeJoy.
"According to a recent decision from the National Labor Relations Board, this giant rat — and its brethren across the country — now have free speech rights, too. Giant inflatable rats have been used for decades as a widely recognized symbol of a labor dispute, but last year, the board signaled it could be persuaded to outlaw their use in certain situations."
"Masked men claiming to represent Mexico's most powerful drug cartel have taken the unusual step of circulating a video threatening to kill a national television news anchor for what they viewed as unfair coverage."
"The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan Tuesday, a huge step for Democrats as they try to push President Joe Biden’s sweeping economic agenda through Congress." Hey, we might actually have Infrastructure Week.
"Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Saturday threatening to withhold his endorsement from any Republican who supports the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Hours later, 18 Republican senators voted to advance the infrastructure package anyway."
"On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released an outline of a coming budget bill that includes a directive to the Senate Finance Committee to expand Medicare 'to include dental, vision, hearing benefits.' The catch – all the Democrats in the Senate and almost all in the House will have to agree on the entire budget bill for Schumer's proposal to become law."
"The nonprofit groups behind the Big Lie, Mayer reports, have all received funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an obscure Milwaukee tax-exempt organization that supports "radical challenges to election rules — a tactic once relegated to the far right." Since 2012, the Bradley foundation has spent $18 million, Mayer says, supporting right-wing groups pushing to restrict voting rights." Following the money behind the coup attempt. (Grokked from Southern Coca).
"A disturbance in the Caribbean is expected to become Tropical Storm Fred on Tuesday before it heads toward Florida, the National Hurricane Center said."
"The best-known meteor shower of the year should be a good time this year on the peak night of August 11, with no bright Moon to interfere."
"In the boglands of the northwestern United States and Canada, an unassuming plant has been trapping and eating insects, totally unbeknownst to science. Today, researchers report that Triantha occidentalis is now the 12th known independent evolution of carnivory—the consumption of animal flesh—in the plant kingdom."
"Analysis of ancient DNA found in Finland has unveiled a surprise a century later – the remains of an early medieval warrior thought to be female may have been nonbinary… The new findings challenge previous ideas about gender roles and expression and suggest that nonbinary people were valued and respected members of their communities, researchers concluded in their study, published in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Archaeology."
"An elephant herd that fascinated locals and people around the world by making a yearlong journey into urbanized southwest China, raiding farms and even a retirement home for food, appears finally to be headed home."
"The U.S. health care system ranked last among 11 wealthy countries despite spending the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund… Researchers behind the report surveyed tens of thousands of patients and doctors in each country and used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization (WHO)… The report considered 71 performance measures that fell under five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes." Ta-da!
"A fourth person in a fourth US state has mysteriously contracted a deadly South Asian bacterium without leaving the continental US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday… Two of the four cases have been fatal, including the latest one identified in Georgia late last month during a post-mortem exam."
"Philip Morris's unlikely attempt to buy an asthma medicine company has forced a rare auction process… The tobacco giant has been locked in a £1bn bidding war with US private equity firm Carlyle over drugmaker Vectura… Now the regulator, the Takeover Panel, has given them a week to make their best offers for the FTSE 250 firm."
"It's inevitable that when kids mix — returning from camp or heading back to school — germs spread. And in a pandemic year fueled by the delta variant, some of those germs may cause COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advice for keeping your child protected from this highly contagious version of the coronavirus now and this fall: Mask up in schools and other crowded venues, and make sure everyone age 12 and older in the family gets a COVID-19 shot."
"More kids are landing in the hospital due to COVID and it's not yet clear if it's because the Delta variant is causing more serious illness in kids… Why it matters: Hospitals are raising concerns about the increasing impact of COVID on kids at the same time schools around the country are preparing to head back for in-person instruction — many without the protection of vaccination or mask mandates."
"More than 3,000 Louisiana children tested positive for the coronavirus in just a few days' time… According to Edwards, more than 6,000 Louisiana children now have COVID-19. Edwards said this is the most positive cases in children since the pandemic began."
"Arkansas on Monday set a new record for the number of people in the state hospitalized because of COVID-19 as its coronavirus surge continued." I'm shocked, I'm sure you are.
"Most Florida children are returning to school in areas where COVID-19 outbreaks are far more intense than they were when school started last year… In most counties, cases are at least four times higher than a year ago, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Five counties report a more than tenfold increase."
"As the majority of Florida's K-12 schools prepare to reopen campuses at full capacity this week — many of them on Tuesday — Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students." Stop making the guv look bad.
"People who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are highly protected against severe infection, hospitalization and death caused by the virus. But coronavirus cases among the fully vaccinated — so-called 'breakthrough' Covid cases — are still being seen among those who have had two doses… While it’s rare for vaccinated people in the U.S. or Europe to get sick from Covid, breakthrough cases are happening for a number of reasons, experts note… For a start, none of the vaccines being deployed in the U.S. or Europe are 100% effective at preventing infection." You might also remember me pointing out that the vaccines don't prevent disease so much as they prevent you from having a sever reaction to the disease.
"Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo Monday saying he will ask the president to approve making COVID-19 vaccines a requirement by mid-September. 'I have every confidence that Service leadership and your commanders will implement this new vaccination program with professionalism, skill, and compassion,' Austin said in the memo." Waits to hear how our brave men and women should have to be forced to :: checks notes :: protect themselves and others.
"Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday the current surge in Covid infections caused by the more contagious delta variant may be the 'final wave' of the virus in the United States." Hahahahaha. Every year a few Americans die from the bubonic plague (aka, the Black Death).
"As idiotic and abhorrent as all of the above is, it's not an exaggeration of the messages being spread by a growing group of Darwin Award finalists on the Internet—that is, germ theory denialists. Yes, you read that correctly: germ theory denialists—also known as people who don't believe that pathogenic viruses and bacteria can cause disease." There aren't enough eyerolls for these people.
"Half of small business owners (50%) say it’s gotten harder to find qualified people to hire compared to a year ago, according to the Q3 2021 CNBC | Momentive Small Business Survey. Almost one-third (31%) say they have open roles they have not been able to fill for at least three months, up from 24% last quarter and 16% in Q1 2020… The labor situation has resulted in 41% of small business owners saying they are currently experiencing a rising cost in wages, according to the new CNBC | Momentive survey, which was conducted between July 26 and August 3 among over 2,000 small businesses across the U.S."
But… "About 3.4 million Americans were long-term unemployed in July, a reduction of about 560,000 from the prior month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics… However, the figure remains elevated relative to pre-pandemic levels. About 2 in 5 jobless individuals are long-term unemployed, meaning they’ve been out of work at least six months."
"The U.S. labor market hit a new milestone recently: For the first time, average pay in restaurants and supermarkets climbed above $15 an hour. Wages have been rising rapidly as the economy reopens and businesses struggle to hire enough workers. Some of the biggest gains have gone to workers in some of the lowest-paying industries." They said it was impossible, that it would destroy the economy. But suddenly, when they had to do it, it wasn't all that hard to get there. But… "Economists caution that a higher average wage is not the same as a $15 minimum wage. Half of workers in these industries are still making below $15 an hour."
"A call about an 'active shooter' at a school in northeastern Tennessee forced an emergency evacuation on Tuesday morning, but there are no injuries or a suspect, the Hawkins County Sheriff's Office said in a preliminary statement." The new bomb threat.
"The U.S. Postal Service will pay $120 million over the next five years to a major logistics contractor that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously helped lead and with which his family maintains financial ties, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure statements and a federal contracting database." Fire DeJoy.
"According to a recent decision from the National Labor Relations Board, this giant rat — and its brethren across the country — now have free speech rights, too. Giant inflatable rats have been used for decades as a widely recognized symbol of a labor dispute, but last year, the board signaled it could be persuaded to outlaw their use in certain situations."
"Masked men claiming to represent Mexico's most powerful drug cartel have taken the unusual step of circulating a video threatening to kill a national television news anchor for what they viewed as unfair coverage."
"The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan Tuesday, a huge step for Democrats as they try to push President Joe Biden’s sweeping economic agenda through Congress." Hey, we might actually have Infrastructure Week.
"Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Saturday threatening to withhold his endorsement from any Republican who supports the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Hours later, 18 Republican senators voted to advance the infrastructure package anyway."
"On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released an outline of a coming budget bill that includes a directive to the Senate Finance Committee to expand Medicare 'to include dental, vision, hearing benefits.' The catch – all the Democrats in the Senate and almost all in the House will have to agree on the entire budget bill for Schumer's proposal to become law."
"The nonprofit groups behind the Big Lie, Mayer reports, have all received funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an obscure Milwaukee tax-exempt organization that supports "radical challenges to election rules — a tactic once relegated to the far right." Since 2012, the Bradley foundation has spent $18 million, Mayer says, supporting right-wing groups pushing to restrict voting rights." Following the money behind the coup attempt. (Grokked from Southern Coca).
Monday, August 9, 2021
Linkee-poo Monday Aug 9
Markie Post, and so it goes.
"In a preprint posted online Thursday night, researchers at Google in collaboration with physicists at Stanford, Princeton and other universities say that they have used Google’s quantum computer to demonstrate a genuine 'time crystal.' In addition, a separate research group claimed earlier this month to have created a time crystal in a diamond."
"A fearsome beast with wings spanning 22 feet. A mouth like a spear. The closest thing we've seen to a real-life dragon… That's how Tim Richards describes the Thapunngaka shawi, a flying reptile whose fossils he's been studying at the University of Queensland's School of Biological Sciences. The pterosaur is believed to have once flown above the Australian outback -- long enough ago that it was soaring above inland seas rather than desert."
"Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity." Oopsie.
"Governments and businesses hoping to plant trees and restore forests in order to reach net-zero emissions must sharply limit such efforts to avoid driving up food prices in the developing world, the charity Oxfam has warned… Planting trees has been mooted as one of the key ways of tackling the climate crisis, but the amount of land needed for such forests would be vast, and planting even a fraction of the area needed to offset global greenhouse gas emissions would encroach on the land needed for crops to feed a growing population…"
"More than 100 large wildfires are burning across nearly 2.3 million acres of the U.S. West, as forecasters warn Americans to brace for another extreme heat wave this week."
"Raging wildfires have ripped through parts of Greece for six straight days, forcing thousands to flee as the blazes threatened entire towns and burned down homes, shops and vast areas of land in their path… An unprecedented heatwave — Greece’s worst in three decades — sent temperatures soaring over the past week as firefighters worked tirelessly to extinguish the uncontrollable flames." There had been video from some of the islands as ferries came on to beaches to evacuate people.
"Greece has been tackling devastating wildfires for seven days in different parts of the country amid the most severe heatwave in three decades."
"Lawmakers and top climate officials in President Joe Biden's administration sounded the alarm on Monday in response to a new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, urging nations to swiftly limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
"Global climate change is accelerating and human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are the overwhelming cause, according to a landmark report released Monday by the United Nations. There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming this century, but only if countries around the world stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the authors warn… The message to world leaders is more dire, and more unequivocal, than ever before." We're boned.
"The U.S. government has not approved booster shots against the virus, saying it has yet to see evidence they are necessary. But Welch and an untold number of other Americans have managed to get them by taking advantage of the nation’s vaccine surplus and loose tracking of those who have been fully vaccinated."
"As the coronavirus pandemic continues, infections caused by the Lambda variant have been emerging in the United States, including in Texas, where Houston Methodist Hospital last month reported its first case." So earlier, when I mentioned the lambda variant as a likely candidate for major breakthrough infections and being more vaccine resistant, I wasn't being prescient, I nearly chose a greek letter after Delta and knowing the virus (any virus) given the opportunity will mutate to continue infecting people.
"The US is averaging more than 100,000 new daily Covid-19 cases each day, the highest in nearly six months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University… And the surge, largely among unvaccinated people, has been fueled by the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus." While I'm not a virologist or in charge of these things, the decrease in overall cases at the beginning of the summer means that this is actually the second surge of the virus.
"Florida hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms, an auditorium and a cafeteria. As of midweek, Mississippi had just six open intensive care beds in the entire state."
"In recent weeks, DeSantis has veered further to the right by reiterating his disdain for Covid-19 restriction measures. He held a secret meeting with anti-mask medical professionals, signed an executive order that gives parents the final decision on whether their children will wear masks in school and promised to cut off state funding to any school district that forces children to put on face coverings… DeSantis’ threat to shut off state funding hasn’t stopped some school districts from bucking his ultimatum." That includes, according to reports elsewhere, the school where DeSantis sends his kids. They have a mandatory masking rule.
"The Covid surge is also stacking upon an unseasonable spike in respiratory illnesses among children typically seen only in winter. That has shrunk the bed space further in children's hospitals and expanded on the unrelenting demand on doctors and nurses."
"Norwegian Cruise Line can require passengers show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination before boarding any of its ships in Florida, a federal judge has ruled… The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami to grant Norwegian's request for a preliminary injunction comes despite a state law passed in May that fines businesses which require proof of such vaccinations."
"Call center workers at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance corporations in the US, are reporting poor working conditions driven by high production demands, fear of being fired, lack of training, and long processing times for customers to receive reimbursement for Covid-19 testing costs."
"The Biden administration is hoping to attract tens of thousands of international students who stayed away from U.S. campuses during the pandemic. Foreign enrollment plummeted by 20% last year costing nearly $10 billion dollars in lost revenue. Though some students are starting to return, recovery might not be so easy. Even before the pandemic, international students were already turning away from the U.S."
"Ayear has passed since Belarusians took to the streets to challenge the authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, over stolen elections, marking the greatest crisis of his 27 years in power and the most harrowing year in the country’s modern history."
There's two recent On the Media shows you should listen to: "This week, we consider whether information should ever be off-limits to journalists. It’s a thorny ethical question raised by FBI informants, hacked sources and shockingly intimate personal data. Plus, why a conservative Catholic publication’s outing of a gay priest has garnered criticism from all sides." There's an interesting exploration on the presence and the function of FBI informants and a discussion of the "honey pot"/entrapment aspect. The counter argument is: the actions are clearly illegal and the plot take several weeks to unfold. So there's plenty of time for these people to have regrets and/or go to the authorities themselves.
"With Delta Variant cases surging, public health officials are pleading with Americans to get vaccinated ASAP. This week, we examine at how some journalists are turning anti-vaxxer deaths into COVID-19 fables. Plus, we hear from the reporter who tracked down Jeffrey Epstein’s victims." With a good segment on the history of the death-bed conversion stories for healthcare reporting. Hint, it's a meme.
"These attacks on Team USA are not just culture war red meat; they are a reflection of a rising tendency in the conservative movement to reject America itself. In this thinking, the country is so corrupted that it is no longer a source of pride or even worthy of respect. In its most radical versions, you even see cheerleading for revolution or civil war." The right's "patriotism" has always been a facade.
"Senate Democrats released a $3.5 trillion budget on Monday morning that doesn't tackle the imminent need to raise the debt ceiling, setting the stage for a dramatic standoff with Republicans this fall… The exclusion of debt limit language amounts to a political gamble by President Joe Biden's party, with the Treasury Department expected to run dry on its borrowing limit in the coming weeks. Senate Republicans have already warned that they won't give Democrats the votes needed to approach the issue on a bipartisan basis, which means that the debt limit's omission from the budget tees up a future cross-aisle fight over the debt." Hello shut down.
"A widely criticized Republican-led review of the 2020 general election in Arizona's largest county appears to be nearing the finish line… The examination in Maricopa County, which was ordered by GOP state senators, began in late April and has lasted weeks longer than anticipated."
"In a preprint posted online Thursday night, researchers at Google in collaboration with physicists at Stanford, Princeton and other universities say that they have used Google’s quantum computer to demonstrate a genuine 'time crystal.' In addition, a separate research group claimed earlier this month to have created a time crystal in a diamond."
"A fearsome beast with wings spanning 22 feet. A mouth like a spear. The closest thing we've seen to a real-life dragon… That's how Tim Richards describes the Thapunngaka shawi, a flying reptile whose fossils he's been studying at the University of Queensland's School of Biological Sciences. The pterosaur is believed to have once flown above the Australian outback -- long enough ago that it was soaring above inland seas rather than desert."
"Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity." Oopsie.
"Governments and businesses hoping to plant trees and restore forests in order to reach net-zero emissions must sharply limit such efforts to avoid driving up food prices in the developing world, the charity Oxfam has warned… Planting trees has been mooted as one of the key ways of tackling the climate crisis, but the amount of land needed for such forests would be vast, and planting even a fraction of the area needed to offset global greenhouse gas emissions would encroach on the land needed for crops to feed a growing population…"
"More than 100 large wildfires are burning across nearly 2.3 million acres of the U.S. West, as forecasters warn Americans to brace for another extreme heat wave this week."
"Raging wildfires have ripped through parts of Greece for six straight days, forcing thousands to flee as the blazes threatened entire towns and burned down homes, shops and vast areas of land in their path… An unprecedented heatwave — Greece’s worst in three decades — sent temperatures soaring over the past week as firefighters worked tirelessly to extinguish the uncontrollable flames." There had been video from some of the islands as ferries came on to beaches to evacuate people.
"Greece has been tackling devastating wildfires for seven days in different parts of the country amid the most severe heatwave in three decades."
"Lawmakers and top climate officials in President Joe Biden's administration sounded the alarm on Monday in response to a new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, urging nations to swiftly limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
"Global climate change is accelerating and human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are the overwhelming cause, according to a landmark report released Monday by the United Nations. There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming this century, but only if countries around the world stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the authors warn… The message to world leaders is more dire, and more unequivocal, than ever before." We're boned.
"The U.S. government has not approved booster shots against the virus, saying it has yet to see evidence they are necessary. But Welch and an untold number of other Americans have managed to get them by taking advantage of the nation’s vaccine surplus and loose tracking of those who have been fully vaccinated."
"As the coronavirus pandemic continues, infections caused by the Lambda variant have been emerging in the United States, including in Texas, where Houston Methodist Hospital last month reported its first case." So earlier, when I mentioned the lambda variant as a likely candidate for major breakthrough infections and being more vaccine resistant, I wasn't being prescient, I nearly chose a greek letter after Delta and knowing the virus (any virus) given the opportunity will mutate to continue infecting people.
"The US is averaging more than 100,000 new daily Covid-19 cases each day, the highest in nearly six months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University… And the surge, largely among unvaccinated people, has been fueled by the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus." While I'm not a virologist or in charge of these things, the decrease in overall cases at the beginning of the summer means that this is actually the second surge of the virus.
"Florida hospitals slammed with COVID-19 patients are suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms, an auditorium and a cafeteria. As of midweek, Mississippi had just six open intensive care beds in the entire state."
"In recent weeks, DeSantis has veered further to the right by reiterating his disdain for Covid-19 restriction measures. He held a secret meeting with anti-mask medical professionals, signed an executive order that gives parents the final decision on whether their children will wear masks in school and promised to cut off state funding to any school district that forces children to put on face coverings… DeSantis’ threat to shut off state funding hasn’t stopped some school districts from bucking his ultimatum." That includes, according to reports elsewhere, the school where DeSantis sends his kids. They have a mandatory masking rule.
"The Covid surge is also stacking upon an unseasonable spike in respiratory illnesses among children typically seen only in winter. That has shrunk the bed space further in children's hospitals and expanded on the unrelenting demand on doctors and nurses."
"Norwegian Cruise Line can require passengers show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination before boarding any of its ships in Florida, a federal judge has ruled… The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami to grant Norwegian's request for a preliminary injunction comes despite a state law passed in May that fines businesses which require proof of such vaccinations."
"Call center workers at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance corporations in the US, are reporting poor working conditions driven by high production demands, fear of being fired, lack of training, and long processing times for customers to receive reimbursement for Covid-19 testing costs."
"The Biden administration is hoping to attract tens of thousands of international students who stayed away from U.S. campuses during the pandemic. Foreign enrollment plummeted by 20% last year costing nearly $10 billion dollars in lost revenue. Though some students are starting to return, recovery might not be so easy. Even before the pandemic, international students were already turning away from the U.S."
"Ayear has passed since Belarusians took to the streets to challenge the authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, over stolen elections, marking the greatest crisis of his 27 years in power and the most harrowing year in the country’s modern history."
There's two recent On the Media shows you should listen to: "This week, we consider whether information should ever be off-limits to journalists. It’s a thorny ethical question raised by FBI informants, hacked sources and shockingly intimate personal data. Plus, why a conservative Catholic publication’s outing of a gay priest has garnered criticism from all sides." There's an interesting exploration on the presence and the function of FBI informants and a discussion of the "honey pot"/entrapment aspect. The counter argument is: the actions are clearly illegal and the plot take several weeks to unfold. So there's plenty of time for these people to have regrets and/or go to the authorities themselves.
"With Delta Variant cases surging, public health officials are pleading with Americans to get vaccinated ASAP. This week, we examine at how some journalists are turning anti-vaxxer deaths into COVID-19 fables. Plus, we hear from the reporter who tracked down Jeffrey Epstein’s victims." With a good segment on the history of the death-bed conversion stories for healthcare reporting. Hint, it's a meme.
"These attacks on Team USA are not just culture war red meat; they are a reflection of a rising tendency in the conservative movement to reject America itself. In this thinking, the country is so corrupted that it is no longer a source of pride or even worthy of respect. In its most radical versions, you even see cheerleading for revolution or civil war." The right's "patriotism" has always been a facade.
"Senate Democrats released a $3.5 trillion budget on Monday morning that doesn't tackle the imminent need to raise the debt ceiling, setting the stage for a dramatic standoff with Republicans this fall… The exclusion of debt limit language amounts to a political gamble by President Joe Biden's party, with the Treasury Department expected to run dry on its borrowing limit in the coming weeks. Senate Republicans have already warned that they won't give Democrats the votes needed to approach the issue on a bipartisan basis, which means that the debt limit's omission from the budget tees up a future cross-aisle fight over the debt." Hello shut down.
"A widely criticized Republican-led review of the 2020 general election in Arizona's largest county appears to be nearing the finish line… The examination in Maricopa County, which was ordered by GOP state senators, began in late April and has lasted weeks longer than anticipated."
Saturday, August 7, 2021
Linkee-poo Saturday Aug 7
Why having more than a rover can be nice… "'Ingenuity is allowing the Perseverance science team to be in two places at once,' said Hand. 'Right now, we are at the "Crater Floor Fractured Rough," where the rover is preparing for the mission’s first sample acquisition on Mars. Yet at the same time, Ingenuity is providing a detailed preview of a potentially intriguing geologic features hundreds of meters away from us.'" Rovers move at a relatively slow pace. Ingenuity can travel fast and do reconnaissance.
"McArthur tweeted, 'Is it weird that after 100 days on the space station, when I see a small piece of lint or food float by, my body still reacts like "SPIDER!!" a split second before my brain can chime in with, "Relax, you're in space, remember? No spiders."'"
"A newly ignited fire in Northern California has forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes as the US fights 96 large active fires that have scorched nearly two million acres… The River Fire, raging in Nevada and Placer counties in California, has destroyed or damaged 80 structures since it started Wednesday, according to Cal Fire. It has already torn through 2,400 acres and was not contained at all Thursday afternoon."
"That was before the lean years that led into the Great Recession of 2008. By the time the complex was abandoned more or less overnight in 2013, it had fallen into vermin-infested disrepair and held a fraction of the dedicated employees who had once walked its halls. City officials gave up on the building — and dismantled the public health department it had come to represent. Eventually, the city sold Herman Kiefer to an out-of-town developer, who has marketed it as a commercial complex." Privitizing Public Health.
"Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine is effective at preventing severe disease among those infected with the delta variant, according to a large-scale trial in South Africa."
"United Airlines will require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated against Covid by no later than Oct. 25 or risk termination, a first for major U.S. carriers that will likely ramp up pressure on rivals."
I usually don't post these stories, but… "Rep. Ralph Norman, one of the three congressional Republicans suing Speaker Nancy Pelosi over fines for not wearing masks during a vote on the U.S. House floor, has contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19, the second member of South Carolina’s delegation to do so."
"Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' approval rating tumbled to 43.7 percent in a new poll published on Wednesday, as the state grapples with a surge in cases of COVID driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant."
"A battle is brewing in Florida over whether students will have to wear masks when they return to the classroom this fall… Several Florida school districts are keeping their mask mandates in place for the upcoming school year, despite an executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis that leaves it up to parents to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school. School boards that don't eliminate mask mandates could face the loss of state funding."
"CNN has fired three employees who violated company policy by coming to work unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus… CNN chief Jeff Zucker told staff members of the firing in a memo sent Thursday that reminded them that vaccines were mandatory if they report to the office or out in the field where they come into contact with other employees."
"Hiring rose in July at its fastest pace in nearly a year despite fears over Covid-19's delta variant and as companies struggled with a tight labor supply, the Labor Department reported Friday… Nonfarm payrolls increased by 943,000 for the month while the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%, according to the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The payroll increase was the best since August 2020."
"Restaurants are dangling vacation and matching 401(k), but many workers aren't biting." Gee, ya think being assholes for decades might have a thing to do with it. Like people who worked for you don't trust you. And people are holding back until their kids are back in school because all parents have to work to make ends meet (and full late stage capitalism)? Gee, if only we could have, I don't know, included such things in a large piece of legislation…
"Like other importers, Poses is contending with a perfect storm of supply trouble — rising prices, overwhelmed ports, a shortage of ships, trains, trucks — that is expected to last into 2022. The experience proved disturbing enough that Poses is reconsidering a cost-saving decision he made five years ago: to shift production of his games and toys out of the United States to China. Now, he thinks, it might make sense to bring production back — at least to Mexico, if not the United States — to protect him from the risks of relying on factories an ocean away in China." DOn't worry, once this is over we'll be back to pursuing all profit at any cost.
"On Wednesday, Kroger (KR) named former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to its board of directors, sparking a flurry of backlash on Twitter from its customers, many of whom said they will no longer shop at the grocer’s stores over the appointment."
"The Justice Department is launching an investigation of the Phoenix Police Department over allegations of excessive use of force and homeless abuse."
"Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens."
"Earlier this week, Raisi, who has long been vocally anti-Western and is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, was given the final approval for the presidency by Iran's all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was elected in June, in a vote many Iranians and Western advocacy groups say was rigged."
"The US has called on Iran's new president to return to talks on reviving a historic nuclear deal… The window for diplomacy would not remain open forever, a spokesman for the US state department warned… Tensions between the US and Iran have soared since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal and restored sanctions." Although Ebrahim Raisi is a killer, unfortunately he's the guy we have to deal with.
"Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden’s participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks… The victims’ family members, first responders and survivors will release a statement Friday calling on Biden to skip 20th-anniversary events in New York and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon unless he releases the documents, which they believe implicate Saudi officials in supporting the acts of terrorism. The group says that as a candidate Biden pledged to be more transparent and release as much information as possible but that his administration has since then ignored their letters and requests."
"Despite a rocky week of fits and starts, President Joe Biden on Friday praised the Senate for edging the bipartisan infrastructure plan closer to passage, ahead of a key vote on the $1 trillion package."
Or… "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a pivotal vote on President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan for Saturday, after breakneck talks to wrap up the bill on Thursday night fell apart… Senators in both parties spent the entire day assembling a package of amendments for consideration that could grease the wheels to final passage, but Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) refused to sign off under intense lobbying from Republican colleagues."
"Timeline: What Georgia prosecutors are looking at as they investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the election."
"Donald Trump wants his supporters to carry 'Trump Cards.'… Trump's PAC sent two emails on Wednesday asking supporters to get on board with carrying the red-and-gold cards, which look like credit cards and bear the former president's signature." Totally not a grift, totally not a Nazi design homage, totally not misspelling "official" on one of the cards, totally not like the Mark of the Beast. "'They will be a sign of your dedicated support to our movement to SAVE AMERICA, and I'm putting my full trust in you.'"
"McArthur tweeted, 'Is it weird that after 100 days on the space station, when I see a small piece of lint or food float by, my body still reacts like "SPIDER!!" a split second before my brain can chime in with, "Relax, you're in space, remember? No spiders."'"
"A newly ignited fire in Northern California has forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes as the US fights 96 large active fires that have scorched nearly two million acres… The River Fire, raging in Nevada and Placer counties in California, has destroyed or damaged 80 structures since it started Wednesday, according to Cal Fire. It has already torn through 2,400 acres and was not contained at all Thursday afternoon."
"That was before the lean years that led into the Great Recession of 2008. By the time the complex was abandoned more or less overnight in 2013, it had fallen into vermin-infested disrepair and held a fraction of the dedicated employees who had once walked its halls. City officials gave up on the building — and dismantled the public health department it had come to represent. Eventually, the city sold Herman Kiefer to an out-of-town developer, who has marketed it as a commercial complex." Privitizing Public Health.
"Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine is effective at preventing severe disease among those infected with the delta variant, according to a large-scale trial in South Africa."
"United Airlines will require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated against Covid by no later than Oct. 25 or risk termination, a first for major U.S. carriers that will likely ramp up pressure on rivals."
I usually don't post these stories, but… "Rep. Ralph Norman, one of the three congressional Republicans suing Speaker Nancy Pelosi over fines for not wearing masks during a vote on the U.S. House floor, has contracted a breakthrough case of COVID-19, the second member of South Carolina’s delegation to do so."
"Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' approval rating tumbled to 43.7 percent in a new poll published on Wednesday, as the state grapples with a surge in cases of COVID driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant."
"A battle is brewing in Florida over whether students will have to wear masks when they return to the classroom this fall… Several Florida school districts are keeping their mask mandates in place for the upcoming school year, despite an executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis that leaves it up to parents to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school. School boards that don't eliminate mask mandates could face the loss of state funding."
"CNN has fired three employees who violated company policy by coming to work unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus… CNN chief Jeff Zucker told staff members of the firing in a memo sent Thursday that reminded them that vaccines were mandatory if they report to the office or out in the field where they come into contact with other employees."
"Hiring rose in July at its fastest pace in nearly a year despite fears over Covid-19's delta variant and as companies struggled with a tight labor supply, the Labor Department reported Friday… Nonfarm payrolls increased by 943,000 for the month while the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%, according to the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The payroll increase was the best since August 2020."
"Restaurants are dangling vacation and matching 401(k), but many workers aren't biting." Gee, ya think being assholes for decades might have a thing to do with it. Like people who worked for you don't trust you. And people are holding back until their kids are back in school because all parents have to work to make ends meet (and full late stage capitalism)? Gee, if only we could have, I don't know, included such things in a large piece of legislation…
"Like other importers, Poses is contending with a perfect storm of supply trouble — rising prices, overwhelmed ports, a shortage of ships, trains, trucks — that is expected to last into 2022. The experience proved disturbing enough that Poses is reconsidering a cost-saving decision he made five years ago: to shift production of his games and toys out of the United States to China. Now, he thinks, it might make sense to bring production back — at least to Mexico, if not the United States — to protect him from the risks of relying on factories an ocean away in China." DOn't worry, once this is over we'll be back to pursuing all profit at any cost.
"On Wednesday, Kroger (KR) named former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to its board of directors, sparking a flurry of backlash on Twitter from its customers, many of whom said they will no longer shop at the grocer’s stores over the appointment."
"The Justice Department is launching an investigation of the Phoenix Police Department over allegations of excessive use of force and homeless abuse."
"Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens."
"Earlier this week, Raisi, who has long been vocally anti-Western and is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, was given the final approval for the presidency by Iran's all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was elected in June, in a vote many Iranians and Western advocacy groups say was rigged."
"The US has called on Iran's new president to return to talks on reviving a historic nuclear deal… The window for diplomacy would not remain open forever, a spokesman for the US state department warned… Tensions between the US and Iran have soared since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal and restored sanctions." Although Ebrahim Raisi is a killer, unfortunately he's the guy we have to deal with.
"Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden’s participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks… The victims’ family members, first responders and survivors will release a statement Friday calling on Biden to skip 20th-anniversary events in New York and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon unless he releases the documents, which they believe implicate Saudi officials in supporting the acts of terrorism. The group says that as a candidate Biden pledged to be more transparent and release as much information as possible but that his administration has since then ignored their letters and requests."
"Despite a rocky week of fits and starts, President Joe Biden on Friday praised the Senate for edging the bipartisan infrastructure plan closer to passage, ahead of a key vote on the $1 trillion package."
Or… "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a pivotal vote on President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan for Saturday, after breakneck talks to wrap up the bill on Thursday night fell apart… Senators in both parties spent the entire day assembling a package of amendments for consideration that could grease the wheels to final passage, but Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) refused to sign off under intense lobbying from Republican colleagues."
"Timeline: What Georgia prosecutors are looking at as they investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the election."
"Donald Trump wants his supporters to carry 'Trump Cards.'… Trump's PAC sent two emails on Wednesday asking supporters to get on board with carrying the red-and-gold cards, which look like credit cards and bear the former president's signature." Totally not a grift, totally not a Nazi design homage, totally not misspelling "official" on one of the cards, totally not like the Mark of the Beast. "'They will be a sign of your dedicated support to our movement to SAVE AMERICA, and I'm putting my full trust in you.'"
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Linkee-poo Thursday Aug 5
"But in the hours before launch on Tuesday, Boeing announced that the Starliner team had discovered 'unexpected valve position indications' in the capsule's propulsion system. Boeing and NASA stood down from that day's attempt to investigate the issue, stating that a liftoff on Wednesday (Aug. 4) remained a possibility."
"A few hours after it had docked to the ISS, the module - called Nauka - started unexpectedly firing its thrusters, essentially trying to pull itself away from the football-field-sized station. A tug of war ensued between the errant module and the four gyroscopes that typically keep the ISS steady. Nauka's thrusters wound up spinning the station around and flipping it over."
"This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It's an act of desperation borne out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared."
"President Biden on Thursday will unveil proposed rules that would set new fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles, surrounded by union officials and carmakers that the White House says are behind the direction he's headed."
"Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points… The research found 'an almost complete loss of stability over the last century' of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows it may be nearing a shutdown." We're boned.
"Göttingen researchers have developed mini-antibodies that efficiently block the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its dangerous new variants. These so-called nanobodies bind and neutralize the virus up to 1000 times better than previously developed mini-antibodies. In addition, the scientists optimized their mini-antibodies for stability and resistance to extreme heat. This unique combination makes them promising agents to treat COVID-19. Since nanobodies can be produced at low costs in large quantities, they could meet the global demand for COVID-19 therapeutics. The new nanobodies are currently in preparation for clinical trials." Way too early to know if this will really be a viable treatment.
"Beginning next week, guests at three central Ohio establishments will be required to show they are fully vaccinated from COVID-19, or that they have tested negative for the virus within the past 48 hours before being allowed inside."
"Florida governor Ron DeSantis earned a new moniker this week as the resurgent coronavirus continued to wreak havoc on his state: the 'Pied Piper of Covid-19, leading everybody off a cliff'… Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, coined the term as Florida continued to set records for new cases and hospitalizations, recorded worrying increases in both deaths and rates of positivity, and led the nation in pediatric Covid admissions."
"DeSantis insisted he is ready to object to any COVID-19 restrictions that would prevent business from operating normally. And he pointed the finger at Biden, saying he is the one who is “helping facilitate” the spread of COVID-19 by not security the country’s southern border with Mexico. “You have hundreds of thousands of people pouring across every month,” DeSantis said. 'Not only are they letting them through, they’re farming them out all across the country, putting them on planes, putting them on buses. Do you think they’re worrying about COVID for that? Of course not.' As might be expected, DeSantis didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations that 'whatever variants there are around the world, they’re coming across that southern border.' The governor had earlier blamed media 'hysteria' for concerns over hospital capacity."
"Nearly 72,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 last week, a “substantial” increase that troubles public health advocates amid the growing wave of infections linked to the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus… The American Academy of Pediatrics released the figures on Tuesday, noting they were a nearly 85% increase from a week earlier. Children — defined by individual states as those aged 17 or 18 and under ― now account for 19% of the nation’s weekly COVID-19 cases."
"School boards are at war with governors over masks. Superintendents are developing contingency plans on the fly. And schools that only just opened have had to shut down… Welcome to sophomore year for Covid-19. The Delta variant, which few had heard of when classes ended in the spring, is upending reopening plans across the country, threatening President Joe Biden’s promise of a more normal school year and sustained economic recovery." At a doctors appointment yesterday the doctor said he was asked by his school board for his input on masks. And as they said, they weren't very up to date on the subject and he would have to research it. I tell this story for a few reasons. First of which is not even all healthcare workers are keeping up with the news, especially when infectious diseases are not their bailiwick (specialists most especially - see what I did there). They said they were half-tempted to just say, "wear the mask" but that they wanted to check the latest from the CDC. Because that's what professionals do, you look to the recognized authority, read what they have to say, and then see if that makes sense or not. Finally I didn't give my opinion, but gave them some direction for further reading (the Providence "outbreak" - which may be less than it was originally made out to be - and the new Delta plus and Lambda variants), because that's also what professionals do.
"The highly contagious delta variant will lead to an increase in breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated as people begin moving indoors after the summer, Moderna said Thursday." Hello booster shots.
"Initial claims for unemployment insurance edged lower last week, meeting Wall Street expectations, while longer-term unemployment signs showed improvement, the Labor Department reported Thursday… First-time filings for benefits dipped to 385,000 for the week ended July 31, a decline of 14,000 from the previous week as the jobs market remains essentially in a holding pattern during the economic recovery. The total hit the Dow Jones estimate exactly."
"Facebook has blocked a team of New York University researchers studying political ads and COVID-19 misinformation from accessing its site, a move that critics say is meant to silence research that makes the company look bad." The Zuck gets a little grumpy.
"A passenger aboard a Frontier Airlines flight has been charged with three counts of battery. The passenger is accused of inappropriately touching two female flight attendants and punching a male attendant on Saturday. The flight crew then restrained the unruly passenger and used tape to ensure he stayed seated for the remainder of the flight."
"Days after a national eviction moratorium expired, the Biden administration on Tuesday issued a new, more limited freeze that remains in effect through Oct. 3… Like the previous order, the two-month moratorium issued Tuesday comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"A federal district judge in Texas temporarily blocked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from implementing an executive order targeting the transport of migrants who are released from custody… The order, issued last Wednesday, was framed as a public health measure to address Covid-19, which is surging in Texas amid Abbott's opposition to new mask mandates or requirements for vaccines. The Justice Department sued two days later."
"A police officer died Tuesday after shots were fired outside the Pentagon building, according to three law enforcement sources… The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which oversees the security of the Pentagon, confirmed the officer's death in a tweet late Tuesday, hours after reports first surfaced."
"For immigrant rights advocates, that email exchange is vindication of what they've been saying for years: that ICE deliberately retaliates against activists… It's a charge ICE consistently denies. But advocates say there's a growing body of evidence that can't be ignored — and they're urging the Biden administration to do something about it."
"The ghost candidates in the three senate races had no party affiliation and didn't campaign, but they were helped by dark money-funded advertising that came from Alvarado's PACs. They were portrayed as 'left-leaning' to attract votes from Democrats… Former Sen. Artiles made headlines when he resigned from the Florida Senate in 2017 after making racist and sexist comments to two lawmakers in a Tallahassee bar. Now prosecutors say that he paid more than $44,000 to a sham candidate in the 2020 District 37 state Senate race named Alex Rodriguez."
A twitter thread… "This anti-vaxxer getting humiliated by @waltermasterson is named Ashley Jefferey… Ashley Jefferey is an actor, with an IMDB profile… He has no visible means of income. He has unlimited free time to attend anti-vaxx events 5 days a week… Let's dive in." Where's James Woods? Also, this thread that explores the ExploreTalent site. I haven't had a moment to verify this (and it's on twitter, so take it with a huge grain of salt), but it's an interesting thought. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
"There are several unanswered questions about this visit, which appears to have violated normal Capitol protocol in various ways. It's not clear who authorized it, since Boebert was not yet a member of Congress and had no official standing in D.C. It's perhaps even stranger that it occurred on a Saturday night, when the Capitol complex is closed. Later, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, Boebert repeatedly denied rumors that she had offered 'reconnaissance tours' to would-be rioters shortly before that event. But her ambiguous comments appeared to avoid any specific discussion of this unexplained December tour."
"Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday that he made good on his promise to pardon a couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at social justice demonstrators as they marched past the couple’s home in a luxury St. Louis enclave last year." I'm sure the governor would feel just as magnanimous about the protestors if they were carrying guns (which they weren't).
"Manufacturers say they’re producing as much ammunition as they can, but many gun store shelves are empty and prices keep rising. Ammunition imports are way up, but at least one U.S. manufacturer is exporting ammo. All while the pandemic, social unrest and a rise in violent crime have prompted millions to buy guns for protection or to take up shooting for sport."
"Lawyers for Donald Trump urged a federal judge Wednesday to block the Treasury Department and the IRS from handing his tax returns over to the House Ways and Means Committee… The committee’s stated reason for seeking the returns, to examine how the IRS audits presidents, is simply a pretext for wanting to look for something embarrassing, the lawyers said in a filing in federal court in Washington, adding that the legal authority invoked by Congress has never been used against a president, a former president or any elected official."
"Top Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters… Some House and Senate Republican leaders stated in the charged moments immediately following the attack that Trump was squarely to blame, and amid blood and shattered glass at the US Capitol, some even considered his removal." You spin me right around, baby.
"The latest bombshell came Wednesday with the revelation that Jeffrey Clark, a top official at the Justice Department, composed a draft letter -- which he urged acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to sign onto -- that said the DOJ had 'significant concerns that may have impacted of the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.'"
"A few hours after it had docked to the ISS, the module - called Nauka - started unexpectedly firing its thrusters, essentially trying to pull itself away from the football-field-sized station. A tug of war ensued between the errant module and the four gyroscopes that typically keep the ISS steady. Nauka's thrusters wound up spinning the station around and flipping it over."
"This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It's an act of desperation borne out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared."
"President Biden on Thursday will unveil proposed rules that would set new fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles, surrounded by union officials and carmakers that the White House says are behind the direction he's headed."
"Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points… The research found 'an almost complete loss of stability over the last century' of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows it may be nearing a shutdown." We're boned.
"Göttingen researchers have developed mini-antibodies that efficiently block the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its dangerous new variants. These so-called nanobodies bind and neutralize the virus up to 1000 times better than previously developed mini-antibodies. In addition, the scientists optimized their mini-antibodies for stability and resistance to extreme heat. This unique combination makes them promising agents to treat COVID-19. Since nanobodies can be produced at low costs in large quantities, they could meet the global demand for COVID-19 therapeutics. The new nanobodies are currently in preparation for clinical trials." Way too early to know if this will really be a viable treatment.
"Beginning next week, guests at three central Ohio establishments will be required to show they are fully vaccinated from COVID-19, or that they have tested negative for the virus within the past 48 hours before being allowed inside."
"Florida governor Ron DeSantis earned a new moniker this week as the resurgent coronavirus continued to wreak havoc on his state: the 'Pied Piper of Covid-19, leading everybody off a cliff'… Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, coined the term as Florida continued to set records for new cases and hospitalizations, recorded worrying increases in both deaths and rates of positivity, and led the nation in pediatric Covid admissions."
"DeSantis insisted he is ready to object to any COVID-19 restrictions that would prevent business from operating normally. And he pointed the finger at Biden, saying he is the one who is “helping facilitate” the spread of COVID-19 by not security the country’s southern border with Mexico. “You have hundreds of thousands of people pouring across every month,” DeSantis said. 'Not only are they letting them through, they’re farming them out all across the country, putting them on planes, putting them on buses. Do you think they’re worrying about COVID for that? Of course not.' As might be expected, DeSantis didn’t provide any evidence to support his allegations that 'whatever variants there are around the world, they’re coming across that southern border.' The governor had earlier blamed media 'hysteria' for concerns over hospital capacity."
"Nearly 72,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 last week, a “substantial” increase that troubles public health advocates amid the growing wave of infections linked to the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus… The American Academy of Pediatrics released the figures on Tuesday, noting they were a nearly 85% increase from a week earlier. Children — defined by individual states as those aged 17 or 18 and under ― now account for 19% of the nation’s weekly COVID-19 cases."
"School boards are at war with governors over masks. Superintendents are developing contingency plans on the fly. And schools that only just opened have had to shut down… Welcome to sophomore year for Covid-19. The Delta variant, which few had heard of when classes ended in the spring, is upending reopening plans across the country, threatening President Joe Biden’s promise of a more normal school year and sustained economic recovery." At a doctors appointment yesterday the doctor said he was asked by his school board for his input on masks. And as they said, they weren't very up to date on the subject and he would have to research it. I tell this story for a few reasons. First of which is not even all healthcare workers are keeping up with the news, especially when infectious diseases are not their bailiwick (specialists most especially - see what I did there). They said they were half-tempted to just say, "wear the mask" but that they wanted to check the latest from the CDC. Because that's what professionals do, you look to the recognized authority, read what they have to say, and then see if that makes sense or not. Finally I didn't give my opinion, but gave them some direction for further reading (the Providence "outbreak" - which may be less than it was originally made out to be - and the new Delta plus and Lambda variants), because that's also what professionals do.
"The highly contagious delta variant will lead to an increase in breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated as people begin moving indoors after the summer, Moderna said Thursday." Hello booster shots.
"Initial claims for unemployment insurance edged lower last week, meeting Wall Street expectations, while longer-term unemployment signs showed improvement, the Labor Department reported Thursday… First-time filings for benefits dipped to 385,000 for the week ended July 31, a decline of 14,000 from the previous week as the jobs market remains essentially in a holding pattern during the economic recovery. The total hit the Dow Jones estimate exactly."
"Facebook has blocked a team of New York University researchers studying political ads and COVID-19 misinformation from accessing its site, a move that critics say is meant to silence research that makes the company look bad." The Zuck gets a little grumpy.
"A passenger aboard a Frontier Airlines flight has been charged with three counts of battery. The passenger is accused of inappropriately touching two female flight attendants and punching a male attendant on Saturday. The flight crew then restrained the unruly passenger and used tape to ensure he stayed seated for the remainder of the flight."
"Days after a national eviction moratorium expired, the Biden administration on Tuesday issued a new, more limited freeze that remains in effect through Oct. 3… Like the previous order, the two-month moratorium issued Tuesday comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"A federal district judge in Texas temporarily blocked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from implementing an executive order targeting the transport of migrants who are released from custody… The order, issued last Wednesday, was framed as a public health measure to address Covid-19, which is surging in Texas amid Abbott's opposition to new mask mandates or requirements for vaccines. The Justice Department sued two days later."
"A police officer died Tuesday after shots were fired outside the Pentagon building, according to three law enforcement sources… The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which oversees the security of the Pentagon, confirmed the officer's death in a tweet late Tuesday, hours after reports first surfaced."
"For immigrant rights advocates, that email exchange is vindication of what they've been saying for years: that ICE deliberately retaliates against activists… It's a charge ICE consistently denies. But advocates say there's a growing body of evidence that can't be ignored — and they're urging the Biden administration to do something about it."
"The ghost candidates in the three senate races had no party affiliation and didn't campaign, but they were helped by dark money-funded advertising that came from Alvarado's PACs. They were portrayed as 'left-leaning' to attract votes from Democrats… Former Sen. Artiles made headlines when he resigned from the Florida Senate in 2017 after making racist and sexist comments to two lawmakers in a Tallahassee bar. Now prosecutors say that he paid more than $44,000 to a sham candidate in the 2020 District 37 state Senate race named Alex Rodriguez."
A twitter thread… "This anti-vaxxer getting humiliated by @waltermasterson is named Ashley Jefferey… Ashley Jefferey is an actor, with an IMDB profile… He has no visible means of income. He has unlimited free time to attend anti-vaxx events 5 days a week… Let's dive in." Where's James Woods? Also, this thread that explores the ExploreTalent site. I haven't had a moment to verify this (and it's on twitter, so take it with a huge grain of salt), but it's an interesting thought. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
"There are several unanswered questions about this visit, which appears to have violated normal Capitol protocol in various ways. It's not clear who authorized it, since Boebert was not yet a member of Congress and had no official standing in D.C. It's perhaps even stranger that it occurred on a Saturday night, when the Capitol complex is closed. Later, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, Boebert repeatedly denied rumors that she had offered 'reconnaissance tours' to would-be rioters shortly before that event. But her ambiguous comments appeared to avoid any specific discussion of this unexplained December tour."
"Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday that he made good on his promise to pardon a couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at social justice demonstrators as they marched past the couple’s home in a luxury St. Louis enclave last year." I'm sure the governor would feel just as magnanimous about the protestors if they were carrying guns (which they weren't).
"Manufacturers say they’re producing as much ammunition as they can, but many gun store shelves are empty and prices keep rising. Ammunition imports are way up, but at least one U.S. manufacturer is exporting ammo. All while the pandemic, social unrest and a rise in violent crime have prompted millions to buy guns for protection or to take up shooting for sport."
"Lawyers for Donald Trump urged a federal judge Wednesday to block the Treasury Department and the IRS from handing his tax returns over to the House Ways and Means Committee… The committee’s stated reason for seeking the returns, to examine how the IRS audits presidents, is simply a pretext for wanting to look for something embarrassing, the lawyers said in a filing in federal court in Washington, adding that the legal authority invoked by Congress has never been used against a president, a former president or any elected official."
"Top Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters… Some House and Senate Republican leaders stated in the charged moments immediately following the attack that Trump was squarely to blame, and amid blood and shattered glass at the US Capitol, some even considered his removal." You spin me right around, baby.
"The latest bombshell came Wednesday with the revelation that Jeffrey Clark, a top official at the Justice Department, composed a draft letter -- which he urged acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to sign onto -- that said the DOJ had 'significant concerns that may have impacted of the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.'"
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Linkee-poo Tuesday Aug 3
"Earth hasn't always experienced the 24-hour day we're so familiar with now. In fact, the way the world turns not only determines the length of our day, but it could have contributed to an influx of oxygen on early Earth that helped life to flourish, according to new research… Researchers studying a unique environment in Michigan's Lake Huron used it to effectively look back at ancient Earth and how changing day length could have impacted the earliest forms of life that existed: tiny organisms called cyanobacteria."
"A toxic invasive species that can be deadly if eaten is spreading, wrecking havoc across parks, flower beds and backyard gardens… Poison hemlock, which resembles Queen Anne’s Lace, can be spotted in highway right-of-ways, along fences and on the edges of farm fields. In just the last year, however, the plant that was originally brought to the U.S. from Europe has migrated near more populated areas, which has experts concerned."
"Years after Kathy Griffin shaved her head in solidarity with her sister who was undergoing chemotherapy, the comedian and actress has announced she has lung cancer… 'I've got to tell you guys something. I have cancer,' Griffin began a note posted Monday on her verified Instagram account." She was never a smoker. But here's the thing about cancer, you have a chance of getting it even if you don't engage in any "high risk" activities. It's just those "high risk" activities give you a greater chance to develop those cancers. Or in other words, smoking can lead to lung cancer, but lung cancer doesn't only affect smokers.
Fuck around and find out. "The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19… Delta breakthrough infections likely contagious… Lambda variant shows vaccine resistance."
"Cuyahoga County has reached the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) definition of 'substantial' coronavirus (COVID-19) spread, triggering a recommendation that even people who have been vaccinated wear masks or facial coverings indoors." Here we go.
"McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) on Monday confirmed that all its customers and staff will need to start wearing masks again inside its U.S. restaurants in areas with high or substantial transmission, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not."
"Meatpacker Tyson Foods announced Tuesday that it will require its 120,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated fully this year and will pay them a $200 bonus to do so… The company said 56,000 U.S. employees have been vaccinated. Office workers face a deadline of Oct. 1 to be vaccinated fully, while plant employees have until Nov. 1." They're coming for you, Barbara.
"The seven-day average of daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed the peak seen last summer when the nation didn’t have an authorized Covid-19 vaccine, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday, citing data published over the weekend." You remember last Summer, when we were all locked down to help prevent the spread.
"New York City will now require proof of vaccination for a wide range of indoor activities like dining, fitness and entertainment, part of an increasing crackdown on those who remain unvaccinated." Well, hello vaccine passport.
"Florida prosecutors on Monday filed charges against five Miami Beach police officers for allegedly using excessive force in arrests made in a hotel lobby, officials said… The five law enforcement officers were charged with misdemeanor battery in the incident that was caught in hotel surveillance footage and body-worn cameras, Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told reporters."
"The Japanese government confirmed on Monday that Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya is safe after she alleged that her country attempted to forcefully remove her from Tokyo… Hours later, a Polish government official announced that she had been granted a humanitarian visa and was staying at the nation's embassy in Tokyo."
"A Belarusian dissident who helped his countrymen flee persecution was found dead in a park on Tuesday in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, where police have launched a murder investigation… Vitaly Shishov, the head of the Kiev-based Belarusian House in Ukraine (BDU) organization, was reported missing by his partner on Monday after going for a run, police said. By Tuesday morning, the activist was found hanged in a forested area of a park near his Kiev home."
"The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act focuses on investments in roads, railways, bridges and broadband internet, but it does not include investments that Biden has referred to as 'human infrastructure,' including money allocated for child care and tax credits for families. Democrats are looking to address those priorities separately."
"Just weeks after its launch, the pro-Trump social network GETTR is inundated with terrorist propaganda spread by supporters of Islamic State, according to a POLITICO review of online activity on the fledgling platform… The social network — started a month ago by members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle — features reams of jihadi-related material, including graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West and even memes of a militant executing Trump in an orange jumpsuit similar to those used in Guantanamo Bay."
"A 100-year-old alleged former guard at a Nazi concentration camp will stand trial in Germany accused of complicity in 3,518 murders, prosecutors say… The unnamed suspect is accused of assisting in the murder of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin between 1942 and 1945." This is what you do to Nazis.
"A fourth police officer who defended the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump is now confirmed to have taken his own life."
"A toxic invasive species that can be deadly if eaten is spreading, wrecking havoc across parks, flower beds and backyard gardens… Poison hemlock, which resembles Queen Anne’s Lace, can be spotted in highway right-of-ways, along fences and on the edges of farm fields. In just the last year, however, the plant that was originally brought to the U.S. from Europe has migrated near more populated areas, which has experts concerned."
"Years after Kathy Griffin shaved her head in solidarity with her sister who was undergoing chemotherapy, the comedian and actress has announced she has lung cancer… 'I've got to tell you guys something. I have cancer,' Griffin began a note posted Monday on her verified Instagram account." She was never a smoker. But here's the thing about cancer, you have a chance of getting it even if you don't engage in any "high risk" activities. It's just those "high risk" activities give you a greater chance to develop those cancers. Or in other words, smoking can lead to lung cancer, but lung cancer doesn't only affect smokers.
Fuck around and find out. "The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19… Delta breakthrough infections likely contagious… Lambda variant shows vaccine resistance."
"Cuyahoga County has reached the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) definition of 'substantial' coronavirus (COVID-19) spread, triggering a recommendation that even people who have been vaccinated wear masks or facial coverings indoors." Here we go.
"McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) on Monday confirmed that all its customers and staff will need to start wearing masks again inside its U.S. restaurants in areas with high or substantial transmission, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not."
"Meatpacker Tyson Foods announced Tuesday that it will require its 120,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated fully this year and will pay them a $200 bonus to do so… The company said 56,000 U.S. employees have been vaccinated. Office workers face a deadline of Oct. 1 to be vaccinated fully, while plant employees have until Nov. 1." They're coming for you, Barbara.
"The seven-day average of daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed the peak seen last summer when the nation didn’t have an authorized Covid-19 vaccine, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday, citing data published over the weekend." You remember last Summer, when we were all locked down to help prevent the spread.
"New York City will now require proof of vaccination for a wide range of indoor activities like dining, fitness and entertainment, part of an increasing crackdown on those who remain unvaccinated." Well, hello vaccine passport.
"Florida prosecutors on Monday filed charges against five Miami Beach police officers for allegedly using excessive force in arrests made in a hotel lobby, officials said… The five law enforcement officers were charged with misdemeanor battery in the incident that was caught in hotel surveillance footage and body-worn cameras, Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told reporters."
"The Japanese government confirmed on Monday that Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya is safe after she alleged that her country attempted to forcefully remove her from Tokyo… Hours later, a Polish government official announced that she had been granted a humanitarian visa and was staying at the nation's embassy in Tokyo."
"A Belarusian dissident who helped his countrymen flee persecution was found dead in a park on Tuesday in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, where police have launched a murder investigation… Vitaly Shishov, the head of the Kiev-based Belarusian House in Ukraine (BDU) organization, was reported missing by his partner on Monday after going for a run, police said. By Tuesday morning, the activist was found hanged in a forested area of a park near his Kiev home."
"The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act focuses on investments in roads, railways, bridges and broadband internet, but it does not include investments that Biden has referred to as 'human infrastructure,' including money allocated for child care and tax credits for families. Democrats are looking to address those priorities separately."
"Just weeks after its launch, the pro-Trump social network GETTR is inundated with terrorist propaganda spread by supporters of Islamic State, according to a POLITICO review of online activity on the fledgling platform… The social network — started a month ago by members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle — features reams of jihadi-related material, including graphic videos of beheadings, viral memes that promote violence against the West and even memes of a militant executing Trump in an orange jumpsuit similar to those used in Guantanamo Bay."
"A 100-year-old alleged former guard at a Nazi concentration camp will stand trial in Germany accused of complicity in 3,518 murders, prosecutors say… The unnamed suspect is accused of assisting in the murder of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin between 1942 and 1945." This is what you do to Nazis.
"A fourth police officer who defended the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump is now confirmed to have taken his own life."
Monday, August 2, 2021
Linkee-poo Monday August 2
"Starting Monday (Aug. 2), you can find Saturn shining in the sky as part of a celestial phenomenon called opposition. Earth and the ringed planet will be on the same side of the sun and connected with our star by an invisible line, allowing skygazers on Earth to see a fully illuminated Saturn." And this time the rings won't be edge on.
"DeWine said despite a surge in cases he has no plans to bring back mandates on masks or crowds… The governor, along with state health officials, came out with recommendations for masks in schools. He said that due to the fact that most kids are unvaccinated, they're strongly recommending students continue to mask up at school… 'We leave it up to the local schools, 600 and some local schools, we leave it up to them. We had great success last winter, last school year, we saw virtually no spread in the classroom when all the kids were wearing masks. So we recommend, strong recommendation, that they do that,' DeWine said." That's a failure of leadership. "I highly recommend this, but you do you," is the leadership you give for a spicy dish at a restaurant, not about a deadly communicable disease that we know what works to prevent its spread. Leadership is hard, ask anyone who has done it successfully. It's a series of compromises where usually you get to be the good person, but often enough it means being the bad person when people don't want to change, but you've done the hard work and can see why certain things need to be the way they are. Many young leaders don't know when to be either. And there's a lot of older "leaders" who always wanted to be the good person and never accept the responsibility of being the bad person for the greater good. It's a lot like parenting.
"Provincetown, home to roughly 3,000 year-round residents, was thrust into the national spotlight last week after it became the subject of a study that persuaded the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its face mask guidelines."
"Florida's largest school district said it's worried about funding if it does not follow Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order preventing the implementation of mask mandates in schools."
"Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber blamed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after the state reported 21,683 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, its highest single-day total during the ongoing pandemic." But we were very confidently told DeSantis aced the COVID response.
"COVID-19 cases are rising sharply in the U.S., thanks to the more easily transmissible Delta variant, but while many Americans may have to mask up again, 'I don't think we're going to see lockdowns,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top federal infectious disease expert, said on Sunday's ABC This Week. 'I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country — not enough to crush the outbreak — but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter.'" Uh, yeah, Bob.
"To avoid lockdowns, people in the United States will have to do things that they won't necessarily want to do, such as wearing masks at indoor gatherings even if they're vaccinated and having kids mask up in schools, the director of the National Institutes of Health said Monday." And who thinks that's gonna happen?
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team on Sunday urged President Joe Biden to immediately renew and extend the eviction moratorium until Oct. 18 after House Democrats failed to marshal the votes to prevent its lapse this weekend." That's not how it works (except in the game of press releases).
"The New York Democrat and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told NPR that the party is hopeful an ambitious, multitrillion-dollar economic agenda trumpeted by the Biden administration will resonate with voters when it's time to head to the polls next fall." Only if you go out and sell it. You can't sit around waiting for people to applaud you, especially in an election. Hey Democrats, can we have a talk here. You tried this exact plan with Obamacare. It didn't work. Because change is hard. Unless you leave your offices and go out to where the people are and explain to them, even if they don't want to hear it, how your plans will change their world for the better, you're gonna lose big. Again. Let's say you actually pass these big bills (and that's still an "if" in case you don't know). And let's say you're able to keep poison pills out of the bills. The money will only be hitting the street just a month or so before the next election. You can't sit in your offices and wait for people to realize that their lives are better. Because they won't tie any of their improvements to your actions unless you tell them directly how the dots are connected. You need a fucking ground strategy.
"Republicans are beginning to catch up with Democrats in online fundraising, creating for the first time in modern history a political landscape where both parties are largely funded by small donations — for better or, some say, for worse."
"Critics note Trump has built an arsenal of political committees and nonprofit groups, staffed with dozens of ex-administration officials and loyalists, which seem aimed at sustaining his political hopes for a comeback, and exacting revenge on Republican congressional critics. These groups have been aggressive in raising money through at times misleading appeals to the party base which polls show share Trump’s false views he lost the White House due to fraud."
"The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act clocked in at some 2,700 pages, and senators could begin amending it soon. Despite the hurry-up-and-wait during a rare weekend session, emotions bubbled over once the bill was produced Sunday night. The final product was not intended to stray from the broad outline senators had negotiated for weeks with the White House." I still don't understand the fetish around the number of pages in a bill.
"Make America Great Again, a super PAC chaired by Trump’s former campaign manager, quietly purchased $300,000 in Ohio television advertising. The buy was intended to provide a late-stage boost to another Trump-backed candidate facing a crowded field of Republicans in a special election on Tuesday."
"A group of Texas Republicans wants to audit the 2020 election results in just the large, mostly Democratic counties across the state. If they get their way, they'll miss many of the real — but minor — errors in the state's vote count… That's according to a team of researchers that conducted a statewide analysis of the results across both Democratic and Republican counties. The group found a series of errors that would not come close to changing Republican Donald Trump's victory in the state or any other statewide race. But the errors stretch across both Republican and Democratic counties." Way to miss what the real purpose of the audits are meant to find. The headlines will be "faults found in Democratic Counties" and nobody will wonder why they didn't find anything in the Republican Counties. It's the same function as "the IRS demanded documents and denied applications (they didn't deny any) of Republican groups!" The IRS did the same with Democratic groups, but none of the "research" focused on them, so the narrative stuck.
"DeWine said despite a surge in cases he has no plans to bring back mandates on masks or crowds… The governor, along with state health officials, came out with recommendations for masks in schools. He said that due to the fact that most kids are unvaccinated, they're strongly recommending students continue to mask up at school… 'We leave it up to the local schools, 600 and some local schools, we leave it up to them. We had great success last winter, last school year, we saw virtually no spread in the classroom when all the kids were wearing masks. So we recommend, strong recommendation, that they do that,' DeWine said." That's a failure of leadership. "I highly recommend this, but you do you," is the leadership you give for a spicy dish at a restaurant, not about a deadly communicable disease that we know what works to prevent its spread. Leadership is hard, ask anyone who has done it successfully. It's a series of compromises where usually you get to be the good person, but often enough it means being the bad person when people don't want to change, but you've done the hard work and can see why certain things need to be the way they are. Many young leaders don't know when to be either. And there's a lot of older "leaders" who always wanted to be the good person and never accept the responsibility of being the bad person for the greater good. It's a lot like parenting.
"Provincetown, home to roughly 3,000 year-round residents, was thrust into the national spotlight last week after it became the subject of a study that persuaded the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its face mask guidelines."
"Florida's largest school district said it's worried about funding if it does not follow Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order preventing the implementation of mask mandates in schools."
"Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber blamed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after the state reported 21,683 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, its highest single-day total during the ongoing pandemic." But we were very confidently told DeSantis aced the COVID response.
"COVID-19 cases are rising sharply in the U.S., thanks to the more easily transmissible Delta variant, but while many Americans may have to mask up again, 'I don't think we're going to see lockdowns,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top federal infectious disease expert, said on Sunday's ABC This Week. 'I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country — not enough to crush the outbreak — but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter.'" Uh, yeah, Bob.
"To avoid lockdowns, people in the United States will have to do things that they won't necessarily want to do, such as wearing masks at indoor gatherings even if they're vaccinated and having kids mask up in schools, the director of the National Institutes of Health said Monday." And who thinks that's gonna happen?
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team on Sunday urged President Joe Biden to immediately renew and extend the eviction moratorium until Oct. 18 after House Democrats failed to marshal the votes to prevent its lapse this weekend." That's not how it works (except in the game of press releases).
"The New York Democrat and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told NPR that the party is hopeful an ambitious, multitrillion-dollar economic agenda trumpeted by the Biden administration will resonate with voters when it's time to head to the polls next fall." Only if you go out and sell it. You can't sit around waiting for people to applaud you, especially in an election. Hey Democrats, can we have a talk here. You tried this exact plan with Obamacare. It didn't work. Because change is hard. Unless you leave your offices and go out to where the people are and explain to them, even if they don't want to hear it, how your plans will change their world for the better, you're gonna lose big. Again. Let's say you actually pass these big bills (and that's still an "if" in case you don't know). And let's say you're able to keep poison pills out of the bills. The money will only be hitting the street just a month or so before the next election. You can't sit in your offices and wait for people to realize that their lives are better. Because they won't tie any of their improvements to your actions unless you tell them directly how the dots are connected. You need a fucking ground strategy.
"Republicans are beginning to catch up with Democrats in online fundraising, creating for the first time in modern history a political landscape where both parties are largely funded by small donations — for better or, some say, for worse."
"Critics note Trump has built an arsenal of political committees and nonprofit groups, staffed with dozens of ex-administration officials and loyalists, which seem aimed at sustaining his political hopes for a comeback, and exacting revenge on Republican congressional critics. These groups have been aggressive in raising money through at times misleading appeals to the party base which polls show share Trump’s false views he lost the White House due to fraud."
"The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act clocked in at some 2,700 pages, and senators could begin amending it soon. Despite the hurry-up-and-wait during a rare weekend session, emotions bubbled over once the bill was produced Sunday night. The final product was not intended to stray from the broad outline senators had negotiated for weeks with the White House." I still don't understand the fetish around the number of pages in a bill.
"Make America Great Again, a super PAC chaired by Trump’s former campaign manager, quietly purchased $300,000 in Ohio television advertising. The buy was intended to provide a late-stage boost to another Trump-backed candidate facing a crowded field of Republicans in a special election on Tuesday."
"A group of Texas Republicans wants to audit the 2020 election results in just the large, mostly Democratic counties across the state. If they get their way, they'll miss many of the real — but minor — errors in the state's vote count… That's according to a team of researchers that conducted a statewide analysis of the results across both Democratic and Republican counties. The group found a series of errors that would not come close to changing Republican Donald Trump's victory in the state or any other statewide race. But the errors stretch across both Republican and Democratic counties." Way to miss what the real purpose of the audits are meant to find. The headlines will be "faults found in Democratic Counties" and nobody will wonder why they didn't find anything in the Republican Counties. It's the same function as "the IRS demanded documents and denied applications (they didn't deny any) of Republican groups!" The IRS did the same with Democratic groups, but none of the "research" focused on them, so the narrative stuck.
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Linkee-poo Sunday Aug 1
"A new generation of soil studies powered by modern microscopes and imaging technologies has revealed that whatever humus is, it is not the long-lasting substance scientists believed it to be. Soil researchers have concluded that even the largest, most complex molecules can be quickly devoured by soil’s abundant and voracious microbes. The magic molecule you can just stick in the soil and expect to stay there may not exist." Soil is not dead, no doth it sleep. (Grokked from Sheila)
"For my book The Authority Gap, which looks at why women are still taken less seriously than men, I commissioned Nielsen Book Research to find out exactly who was reading what. I wanted to know whether female authors were not just deemed less authoritative than men, but whether they were being read by men in the first place. And the results confirmed my suspicion that men were disproportionately unlikely even to open a book by a woman." The arguments that center around, "I read what I like" are perfectly fine until you hit the wall of experience and reinforcement of gendered norms. But the good news for authors who are women is that more women read books than men.
"A big part of the problem results from places like IFPI and RIAA using bots to automate the DMCA takedown process and, as Adam stated, hosting services assuming these requests are always correct. And it appears there are more and more bots in recent months making more and more requests." Jason Sanford's Grapevine column is full of chunky goodness.
"Johannsson is the film's star and also its executive producer. She says in her lawsuit — which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal — that her agreement with Disney's Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release and based her salary in part on the film's box office performance."
"Yesterday's unexpected tilting of the International Space Station was caused by a software glitch, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos."
"The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency said on Saturday that pressure in a Russian service module on the International Space Station had dropped as a result of an air leak." Just a reminder, Russia has already said they plan to withdraw from the ISS (which is nearing the end of it's life anyway) and launch their own space station.
"Astronomers recently saw something they'd never seen before while peering at a black hole some 800 million light-years away: X-ray light emissions coming from directly behind the black hole at the center of a distant galaxy."
"Recently discovered fossils belonging to ancient sponges might be the earliest known remnants of an animal body and pre-date other sponge fossils by 350 million years."
"Stability in Earth's climate hinges on a delicate balance between the amount of energy the planet absorbs from the sun and the amount of energy Earth emits back into space. But that equilibrium has been thrown off in recent years — and the imbalance is growing, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications."
"Surveys done by UCLA researchers reported that around one-third of unvaccinated individuals said they would get a vaccine for cash… But in states such as Arkansas, vaccination rates remain low despite incentive programs. And while incentives in other states have had better luck, their success has been short-lived in many cases, including Ohio's."
Why the changed on masking protocols? "An internal slide presentation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dated Thursday gives new details on how dangerous the delta variant really is… One chart shows that it could be as contagious as chickenpox, which is one of the more transmissible viruses out there. It spreads more easily than the common cold, the 1918 flu and smallpox… It also says that in addition to being more contagious, the delta variant likely increases the risk of severe disease and hospitalization, compared with the original strain."
"And here's the part that really could change your day-to-day life: It seems vaccinated people who get breakthrough infections may be able to transmit the virus, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Whoopsie.
"Even as the White House highlighted what it considers alarmism in reporting of the surge in cases of the Delta coronavirus variant across the US, reports in the same national media suggested vaccinations are increasing in hotspot areas." Here's the thing, the vaccine still works against the Delta variant, even with breakthrough infections, etc, these are not reasons to not get the vaccine. Because, again, Delta won't be the last variant, and the virus now has a large pool in which to grow.
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday issued an executive order that bars local school districts from requiring students to wear masks when they return to the classroom next month." Florida just had its highest reported new cases the other day.
"Thousands of people protested France’s special virus pass with marches through Paris and other French cities on Saturday. Most demonstrations were peaceful, but sporadic clashes with riot police marked protests in the French capital."
"As the clock runs out on a nationwide eviction ban for what’s expected to be the final time, millions of tenants are staring at the prospect of losing their homes as they wait for emergency rental aid that the government has failed to deliver… The federal eviction moratorium in place since September is set to expire (yesterday), after the Biden administration refused to extend it and Democrats in Congress couldn't muster the votes to intervene. Now lawmakers and activists fear an unprecedented surge in evictions in the coming months just as the highly transmissible Delta variant causes a spike in coronavirus cases."
"The U.S. economy rose at a disappointing rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in a sign that the U.S. has escaped the shackles of the Covid-19 pandemic but still has more work to do… Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced during the April-to-June period, accelerated 6.5% on an annualized basis. That was slightly better than the 6.3% gain in the first quarter, which was revised down narrowly."
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "US GDP falls short as supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages stunt comeback… US economy grows at a 6.5% annual pace in second quarter." Leave it to Fox to find a way to find the black lining in the silver cloud of a 6.5% GDP growth.
"At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves… Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market." Now, before you lose your shit over the prospect of not being able to get your bacon fix in California, note this is the real reason you're hearing about it… "The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven't complied because of the cost and because California hasn't yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced." Corporate welfare. Most other industries facing a loss of 15% of business would do the right thing.
"'Ladies and gentlemen, rock 'n' roll.'… Those were the words spoken by Warner Cable executive John Lack on Aug. 1, 1981, at 12:01 am when MTV — Music Television — went on air for the very first time." Remember when MTV played music?
"Maritime tensions are escalating in the Middle East following the deadly attack on a tanker connected to an Israeli billionaire in the Arabian Sea… Two crewmembers, a Briton and a Romanian, died on Thursday when the Mercer Street tanker was attacked by an armed drone believed to be operated by Iran off the coast of Oman."
"The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts some of the most prominent federal prosecutors' offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said."
"The White House is unveiling a strategy to address root causes of migration, a long-term effort that includes increased cooperation with the private sector and with other foreign governments to try to accelerate change in Central America… The proposal comes as thousands of migrants arrived at the U.S. southern border every day last month."
"The Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal finally moved forward on Wednesday night after weeks of grueling negotiations, handing a group of centrists and President Joe Biden a major win."
"McCarthy also tweeted: 'Make no mistake—The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.'… Responding to McCarthy's comments in his speech in the House on Wednesday, Ryan said that his remarks were 'immature' and "'beneath' a leader of Congress."
"Ken Bennett, the state senate liaison in charge of overseeing the audit of the Maricopa County 2020 presidential election results, will no longer be resigning from his position despite telling a radio station that he intended to resign earlier Wednesday."
"Lawmakers on the Jan. 6 select committee describe their probe’s reach as still undefined, saying in interviews that they have yet to formalize the confines of an already closely watched and fast-moving investigation. Minutes before the panel’s first hearing on Tuesday, however, its members scored a key win thanks to a legal opinion from President Joe Biden's Justice Department that allowed them to freely seek witness statements from former Trump administration officials."
"The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the plaintiffs' agreements to arbitrate claims against the multi-level marketing company American Communications Network did not extend to the Trumps, who had not signed those agreements."
"Then, to prove his point about preparation, (Mo Brooks) revealed a new detail to me: that because of a tip he’d received about potential violence, he’d been wearing body armor at the very same Ellipse speech in which he encouraged rally attendees to 'start taking down names and kicking ass.'" "The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."
"It was previously known that Trump publicly and privately pushed the Justice Department to investigate his baseless claims that the election was stolen, but the new documents — nine pages of contemporaneous notes from a Dec. 27 phone call between Trump, then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue — provide new insights into those efforts."
"A new report by The Daily Beast claims that, privately, the 75-year-old former president has described some of the police officers on duty during the Capitol riots as 'p-------,' who he deems to be weak." How's that for your Back the Blue conservative.
Thin blue line… "Michael Fanone, a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer, received a vulgar, threatening voicemail while testifying Tuesday before the House select committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, with an unidentified caller saying he wished the mob of rioters who breached the Capitol would have 'killed all you scumbags.'"
"House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joked at a Saturday night event that it 'will be hard not to hit' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the speaker's gavel if Republicans take control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms and he becomes speaker." Another schoolhouse bully raised to power within the conservative sphere.
"For my book The Authority Gap, which looks at why women are still taken less seriously than men, I commissioned Nielsen Book Research to find out exactly who was reading what. I wanted to know whether female authors were not just deemed less authoritative than men, but whether they were being read by men in the first place. And the results confirmed my suspicion that men were disproportionately unlikely even to open a book by a woman." The arguments that center around, "I read what I like" are perfectly fine until you hit the wall of experience and reinforcement of gendered norms. But the good news for authors who are women is that more women read books than men.
"A big part of the problem results from places like IFPI and RIAA using bots to automate the DMCA takedown process and, as Adam stated, hosting services assuming these requests are always correct. And it appears there are more and more bots in recent months making more and more requests." Jason Sanford's Grapevine column is full of chunky goodness.
"Johannsson is the film's star and also its executive producer. She says in her lawsuit — which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal — that her agreement with Disney's Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release and based her salary in part on the film's box office performance."
"Yesterday's unexpected tilting of the International Space Station was caused by a software glitch, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos."
"The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency said on Saturday that pressure in a Russian service module on the International Space Station had dropped as a result of an air leak." Just a reminder, Russia has already said they plan to withdraw from the ISS (which is nearing the end of it's life anyway) and launch their own space station.
"Astronomers recently saw something they'd never seen before while peering at a black hole some 800 million light-years away: X-ray light emissions coming from directly behind the black hole at the center of a distant galaxy."
"Recently discovered fossils belonging to ancient sponges might be the earliest known remnants of an animal body and pre-date other sponge fossils by 350 million years."
"Stability in Earth's climate hinges on a delicate balance between the amount of energy the planet absorbs from the sun and the amount of energy Earth emits back into space. But that equilibrium has been thrown off in recent years — and the imbalance is growing, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications."
"Surveys done by UCLA researchers reported that around one-third of unvaccinated individuals said they would get a vaccine for cash… But in states such as Arkansas, vaccination rates remain low despite incentive programs. And while incentives in other states have had better luck, their success has been short-lived in many cases, including Ohio's."
Why the changed on masking protocols? "An internal slide presentation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dated Thursday gives new details on how dangerous the delta variant really is… One chart shows that it could be as contagious as chickenpox, which is one of the more transmissible viruses out there. It spreads more easily than the common cold, the 1918 flu and smallpox… It also says that in addition to being more contagious, the delta variant likely increases the risk of severe disease and hospitalization, compared with the original strain."
"And here's the part that really could change your day-to-day life: It seems vaccinated people who get breakthrough infections may be able to transmit the virus, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Whoopsie.
"Even as the White House highlighted what it considers alarmism in reporting of the surge in cases of the Delta coronavirus variant across the US, reports in the same national media suggested vaccinations are increasing in hotspot areas." Here's the thing, the vaccine still works against the Delta variant, even with breakthrough infections, etc, these are not reasons to not get the vaccine. Because, again, Delta won't be the last variant, and the virus now has a large pool in which to grow.
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday issued an executive order that bars local school districts from requiring students to wear masks when they return to the classroom next month." Florida just had its highest reported new cases the other day.
"Thousands of people protested France’s special virus pass with marches through Paris and other French cities on Saturday. Most demonstrations were peaceful, but sporadic clashes with riot police marked protests in the French capital."
"As the clock runs out on a nationwide eviction ban for what’s expected to be the final time, millions of tenants are staring at the prospect of losing their homes as they wait for emergency rental aid that the government has failed to deliver… The federal eviction moratorium in place since September is set to expire (yesterday), after the Biden administration refused to extend it and Democrats in Congress couldn't muster the votes to intervene. Now lawmakers and activists fear an unprecedented surge in evictions in the coming months just as the highly transmissible Delta variant causes a spike in coronavirus cases."
"The U.S. economy rose at a disappointing rate in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in a sign that the U.S. has escaped the shackles of the Covid-19 pandemic but still has more work to do… Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced during the April-to-June period, accelerated 6.5% on an annualized basis. That was slightly better than the 6.3% gain in the first quarter, which was revised down narrowly."
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "US GDP falls short as supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages stunt comeback… US economy grows at a 6.5% annual pace in second quarter." Leave it to Fox to find a way to find the black lining in the silver cloud of a 6.5% GDP growth.
"At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves… Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market." Now, before you lose your shit over the prospect of not being able to get your bacon fix in California, note this is the real reason you're hearing about it… "The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven't complied because of the cost and because California hasn't yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced." Corporate welfare. Most other industries facing a loss of 15% of business would do the right thing.
"'Ladies and gentlemen, rock 'n' roll.'… Those were the words spoken by Warner Cable executive John Lack on Aug. 1, 1981, at 12:01 am when MTV — Music Television — went on air for the very first time." Remember when MTV played music?
"Maritime tensions are escalating in the Middle East following the deadly attack on a tanker connected to an Israeli billionaire in the Arabian Sea… Two crewmembers, a Briton and a Romanian, died on Thursday when the Mercer Street tanker was attacked by an armed drone believed to be operated by Iran off the coast of Oman."
"The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts some of the most prominent federal prosecutors' offices around the country last year, the Justice Department said."
"The White House is unveiling a strategy to address root causes of migration, a long-term effort that includes increased cooperation with the private sector and with other foreign governments to try to accelerate change in Central America… The proposal comes as thousands of migrants arrived at the U.S. southern border every day last month."
"The Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal finally moved forward on Wednesday night after weeks of grueling negotiations, handing a group of centrists and President Joe Biden a major win."
"McCarthy also tweeted: 'Make no mistake—The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.'… Responding to McCarthy's comments in his speech in the House on Wednesday, Ryan said that his remarks were 'immature' and "'beneath' a leader of Congress."
"Ken Bennett, the state senate liaison in charge of overseeing the audit of the Maricopa County 2020 presidential election results, will no longer be resigning from his position despite telling a radio station that he intended to resign earlier Wednesday."
"Lawmakers on the Jan. 6 select committee describe their probe’s reach as still undefined, saying in interviews that they have yet to formalize the confines of an already closely watched and fast-moving investigation. Minutes before the panel’s first hearing on Tuesday, however, its members scored a key win thanks to a legal opinion from President Joe Biden's Justice Department that allowed them to freely seek witness statements from former Trump administration officials."
"The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the plaintiffs' agreements to arbitrate claims against the multi-level marketing company American Communications Network did not extend to the Trumps, who had not signed those agreements."
"Then, to prove his point about preparation, (Mo Brooks) revealed a new detail to me: that because of a tip he’d received about potential violence, he’d been wearing body armor at the very same Ellipse speech in which he encouraged rally attendees to 'start taking down names and kicking ass.'" "The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."
"It was previously known that Trump publicly and privately pushed the Justice Department to investigate his baseless claims that the election was stolen, but the new documents — nine pages of contemporaneous notes from a Dec. 27 phone call between Trump, then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue — provide new insights into those efforts."
"A new report by The Daily Beast claims that, privately, the 75-year-old former president has described some of the police officers on duty during the Capitol riots as 'p-------,' who he deems to be weak." How's that for your Back the Blue conservative.
Thin blue line… "Michael Fanone, a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer, received a vulgar, threatening voicemail while testifying Tuesday before the House select committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, with an unidentified caller saying he wished the mob of rioters who breached the Capitol would have 'killed all you scumbags.'"
"House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joked at a Saturday night event that it 'will be hard not to hit' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the speaker's gavel if Republicans take control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms and he becomes speaker." Another schoolhouse bully raised to power within the conservative sphere.
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