A Sense of Doubt blog post #2006 - Your 2020 Personal Protection Equipment - WEEKLY HODGE PODGE for 2008.15
I fell behind on making the blog posts happen. I was writing a story, as explained here:
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2004 - Does this happen to you and no such thing as writer's block?
Not a lot of vetting and curating for this one as I want to get it out. But this week's theme and the topper image are simple.
We must protect ourselves, and in addition to masks, gloves, and sanitizer, the way we can best protect ourselves is to use democracy to save us from a mad, would-be dictator with the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old and the intellect of the fourth grade bully that tripped you every day on the playground and the party that put him in power and may keep him in power. That party is weaponizing the government and its systems against heir own people and only to consolidate their power and promote their agenda of securing luxury and excess for the one percent.
We can't let them win. We cannot allow them to sabotage the postal service to suppress voting. We cannot allow them to tell lies about the economy, the virus response, the protests, the government's ability to create a robust stimulus, and so much more. And most importantly, when we use democracy to stop them and restore dignity, wisdom, and compassion to the office of the president and the government as a whole, we must force them to relinquish their power even though they will cry foul and fraud and illegitimate elections.
And we must try to help out brainwashed brothers and sisters to see sense. Granted, not all those who support Trump and/or the GOP are brainwashed -- though Fox News is trying -- but many are and many need help to heal, unless their maskless, reckless behavior in a global pandemic kills them first.
Welcome to the weekly HODGE PODGE, things I found of interest this week.
Peace be with you.
— Darick Knows Black Lives Matter! (@DarickR) August 16, 2020
via GIPHY
https://www.wonkette.com/kamala-harris-is-your-new-vice-president-now-lets-go-win-this-motherf-cker
I shared this link and content Tuesday, but it never gets old. I cried when I heard the news. Same as how I cried when I saw this:
Joe Biden calls for nationwide mask mandate.— ABC News (@ABC) August 13, 2020
"Let's institute a mask mandate, nationwide, starting immediately—and we will save lives." https://t.co/hECiEtQ31u pic.twitter.com/6lF7LzCFT8
Trump FINALLY called out for taking credit for an Obama accomplishment in humiliating moment
Asshole.
What else is new?
https://www.wonkette.com/israel-united-arab-emirates-didnt-jo-to-jared
Joe Biden, who actually did do negotiations in the Mideast as vice president, issued a statement that didn't mention Trump at all, because Jesus, why would you?
I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the U.A.E. during our administration building the case for cooperation and broader engagement and the benefits it could deliver to both nations, and I am gratified by today's announcement.
in other words, "Good job tying a bow on the work we started. Don't fuck it up, stupid."
Trump wasted no time before fantasizing about how quick and easy it will be for his next big success, reaching a new nuclear deal with Iran, although that can only happen once he's "reelected." Even though, unlike Israel and the UAE, there's no sign at all Iran wants to ink an agreement with Trump, he boasted, "If I win the election, I will have a deal with Iran within 30 days."
You bet. And it'll be called the "Donald J. Trump Is The Greatest Deal-Maker With Iran Accord."
[NYT]
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THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT
I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.
WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT - JOHNS HOPKINS
Anyway, as usual, here's the weekly links to the data about cases (lower than reality) and deaths (lower than reality, also) due to COVID-19.
Data can be found here, as always:
This is also a good data site:
Last updated: August 16, 2020, 21:34 GMT
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
5,560,187
Deaths:
173,021
Recovered:
2,917,947
About Worldometer
Worldometer manually analyzes, validates, and aggregates data from thousands of sources in real time and provides global COVID-19 live statistics for a wide audience of caring people around the world.
Our data is also trusted and used by the UK Government, Johns Hopkins CSSE, the Government of Thailand, the Government of Vietnam, the Government of Pakistan, Financial Times, The New York Times, Business Insider, BBC, and many others.
Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.
Worldometer is cited as a source in over 10,000 published books and in more than 6,000 professional journal articles and was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world.
One big question
Black Americans are more likely to breathe polluted air, more likely to live near a landfill, more likely to be displaced by rising oceans, and more likely to die from the combination of these things than other Americans.
So what can we do to make sure Black lives are front and center in the climate movement?
Reader Annalise Servin asked that question for our series on climate action, and as it turns out, we have a lot of work to do.
For one, the climate movement needs to look more like the diverse communities it claims to represents.
A 2018 survey of environmental nonprofits found that 85 percent of their staff members are white — and critics say that’s reflected in their priorities.
To their (slight) credit, the Sierra Club and other mainstream nonprofits have acknowledged their mistakes and promised to do more for racial justice, and we should hold them to that.
But we should also look to new leaders, especially those who’ve been prioritizing racial justice all along.
Here in Portland, for example, that means following the lead of BIPOC-led nonprofits like OPAL Environmental Justice and Verde, and supporting their work to build parks, improve transit access, and restore green spaces in communities of color.
So what else will it take to bring racial justice to the climate movement?
Read the full story on our website, and stay tuned for another reader question and answer next week.
This series is sponsored by VertueLab , a nonprofit that’s fighting climate change by providing funding and holistic support to cleantech entrepreneurs. VertueLab did not have editorial input.
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One small action
It’s not just a presidential election year. It’s also a U.S. Census year, and getting an accurate count in Oregon could help our state get more representation in Congress — and more funding for housing vouchers and other social programs.
Here’s the problem though: Only 65 percent of Oregonians have completed the Census survey so far, and the Trump administration just moved the deadline up a month, from late October to late September.
That means we only have seven weeks to make sure all our Oregon friends, family, and neighbors get counted.
Here are a few ways to do that:
- Start with yourself. If you haven’t submitted the Census survey online, by mail, or by phone yet, obviously do that first.
- Spread the word on social media. The We Count Oregon campaign has created graphics that you can share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — or you can keep it simple and just share a link to the Census homepage.
- Check in with your friends and family. The less time Census workers have to spend following up with your nephew, the more time they can spend following up with other non-respondents. So shoot Jimmy a text and make sure he’s taken his survey.
P.S. If you need any more motivation, Washington’s survey completion rate is higher than ours right now, and that’s not a thing we can allow to happen.
What else?
You know that song about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot? Well, a new affordable housing development in Cully does exactly the opposite. The project will replace an ugly asphalt parking lot on NE 42nd with 56 affordable apartments for Native American artists, plus a gallery space next door.
“Stop clearcutting Oregon’s forests.” Environmentalists have been saying that for decades, but now even the economists are getting on board and explaining how a simple policy tweak could incentivize forestland owners to keep more of their trees in the ground.
The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating criminal justice reform in Oregon. Not only has Governor Brown commuted sentences for 50+ inmates since the outbreak, but the Oregon Legislature could vote this week to close two state prisons — a cost-cutting move that wasn’t on the table until the economic downturn forced budget cuts.
Just for fun...
What did you think?
ICYMI, we're piloting a new weekly newsletter about how to make Portland a more sustainable and equitable city on the other side of this pandemic, and thanks to our sponsor VertueLab, it's free to everyone this month.
Got feedback? Take this two-minute survey to share your thoughts on the content and format, or just hit reply. We’re still making tweaks from week to week, and your input is so, so helpful. 
— Ben and Devin at Bridgeliner
Despite trillions of dollars of economic damage, Bill Gates is optimistic that a strong pipeline of therapies and vaccines will carry the US through the pandemic
PHOTOGRAPH: JEFF PACHOUD/GETTY IMAGES
Bill Gates on Covid:
Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’
The
techie-turned-philanthropist on vaccines, Trump, and why social media is “a
poisoned chalice.”
FOR 20 YEARS, Bill Gates has been easing out of the roles that made him rich and famous—CEO, chief software architect, and chair of Microsoft—and devoting his brainpower and passion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, abandoning earnings calls and antitrust hearings for the metrics of disease eradication and carbon reduction. This year, after he left the Microsoft board, one would have thought he would have relished shedding the spotlight directed at the four CEOs of big tech companies called before Congress.
But as with many of us, 2020 had different plans for Gates. An early Cassandra who warned of our lack of preparedness for a global pandemic, he became one of the most credible figures as his foundation made huge investments in vaccines, treatments, and testing. He also became a target of the plague of misinformation afoot in the land, as logorrheic critics accused him of planning to inject microchips in vaccine recipients. (Fact check: false. In case you were wondering.)
My first interview with Gates was in 1983, and I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve spoken to him since. He’s yelled at me (more in the earlier years) and made me laugh (more in the latter years). But I’ve never looked forward to speaking to him more than in our year of Covid. We connected on Wednesday, remotely of course. In discussing our country’s failed responses, his issues with his friend Mark Zuckerberg’s social networks, and the innovations that might help us out of this mess, Gates did not disappoint. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WIRED: You have been warning us about a global pandemic for years. Now that it has happened just as you predicted, are you disappointed with the performance of the United States?
Bill Gates: Yeah. There’s three time periods, all of which have disappointments. There is 2015 until this particular pandemic hit. If we had built up the diagnostic, therapeutic, and vaccine platforms, and if we’d done the simulations to understand what the key steps were, we’d be dramatically better off. Then there’s the time period of the first few months of the pandemic, when the US actually made it harder for the commercial testing companies to get their tests approved, the CDC had this very low volume test that didn’t work at first, and they weren’t letting people test. The travel ban came too late, and it was too narrow to do anything. Then, after the first few months, eventually we figured out about masks, and that leadership is important.
So you’re disappointed, but are you surprised?
I’m surprised at the US situation because the smartest people on epidemiology in the world, by a lot, are at the CDC. I would have expected them to do better. You would expect the CDC to be the most visible, not the White House or even Anthony Fauci. But they haven’t been the face of the epidemic. They are trained to communicate and not try to panic people but get people to take things seriously. They have basically been muzzled since the beginning. We called the CDC, but they told us we had to talk to the White House a bunch of times. Now they say, “Look, we’re doing a great job on testing, we don’t want to talk to you.” Even the simplest things, which would greatly improve this system, they feel would be admitting there is some imperfection and so they are not interested.
Do you think it’s the agencies that fell down or just the leadership at the top, the White House?
We can do the postmortem at some point. We still have a pandemic going on, and we should focus on that. The White House didn’t allow the CDC to do its job after March. There was a window where they were engaged, but then the White House didn’t let them do that. So the variance between the US and other countries isn’t that first period, it’s the subsequent period where the messages—the opening up, the leadership on masks, those things—are not the CDC’s fault. They said not to open back up; they said that leadership has to be a model of face mask usage. I think they have done a good job since April, but we haven’t had the benefit of it.
At this point, are you optimistic?
Yes. You have to admit there’s been trillions of dollars of economic damage done and a lot of debts, but the innovation pipeline on scaling up diagnostics, on new therapeutics, on vaccines is actually quite impressive. And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022. That is only because of the scale of the innovation that’s taking place. Now whenever we get this done, we will have lost many years in malaria and polio and HIV and the indebtedness of countries of all sizes and instability. It’ll take you years beyond that before you’d even get back to where you were at the start of 2020. It’s not World War I or World War II, but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system.
In March it was unimaginable that you’d be giving us that timeline and saying it’s great.
Well it’s because of innovation that you don’t have to contemplate an even sadder statement, which is this thing will be raging for five years until natural immunity is our only hope.
Let’s talk vaccines, which your foundation is investing in. Is there anything that’s shaping up relatively quickly that could be safe and effective?
Before the epidemic came, we saw huge potential in the RNA vaccines—Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and CureVac. Right now, because of the way you manufacture them, and the difficulty of scaling up, they are more likely—if they are helpful—to help in the rich countries. They won’t be the low-cost, scalable solution for the world at large. There you’d look more at AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson. This disease, from both the animal data and the phase 1 data, seems to be very vaccine preventable. There are questions still. It will take us awhile to figure out the duration [of protection], and the efficacy in elderly, although we think that’s going to be quite good. Are there any side effects, which you really have to get out in those large phase 3 groups and even after that through lots of monitoring to see if there are any autoimmune diseases or conditions that the vaccine could interact with in a deleterious fashion.
Are you concerned that in our rush to get a vaccine we are going to approve something that isn’t safe and effective?
Yeah. In China and Russia they are moving full speed ahead. I bet there’ll be some vaccines that will get out to lots of patients without the full regulatory review somewhere in the world. We probably need three or four months, no matter what, of phase 3 data, just to look for side effects. The FDA, to their credit, at least so far, is sticking to requiring proof of efficacy. So far they have behaved very professionally despite the political pressure. There may be pressure, but people are saying no, make sure that that’s not allowed. The irony is that this is a president who is a vaccine skeptic. Every meeting I have with him he is like, “Hey, I don’t know about vaccines, and you have to meet with this guy Robert Kennedy Jr. who hates vaccines and spreads crazy stuff about them.”
Wasn’t Kennedy Jr. talking about you using vaccines to implant chips into people?
Yeah, you’re right. He, Roger Stone, Laura Ingraham. They do it in this kind of way: “I’ve heard lots of people say X, Y, Z.” That’s kind of Trumpish plausible deniability. Anyway, there was a meeting where Francis Collins, Tony Fauci, and I had to [attend], and they had no data about anything. When we would say, “But wait a minute, that’s not real data,” they’d say, “Look, Trump told you you have to sit and listen, so just shut up and listen anyway.” So it’s a bit ironic that the president is now trying to have some benefit from a vaccine.
What goes through your head when you’re in a meeting hearing misinformation, and the President of the United States wants you to keep your mouth shut?
That was a bit strange. I haven’t met directly with the president since March of 2018. I made it clear I’m glad to talk to him about the epidemic anytime. And I have talked to Debbie Birx, I’ve talked to Pence, I’ve talked to Mnuchin, Pompeo, particularly on the issue of, Is the US showing up in terms of providing money to procure the vaccine for the developing countries? There have been lots of meetings, but we haven’t been able to get the US to show up. It’s very important to be able to tell the vaccine companies to build extra factories for the billions of doses, that there is procurement money to buy those for the marginal cost. So in this supplemental bill, I’m calling everyone I can to get 4 billion through GAVI for vaccines and 4 billion through a global fund for therapeutics. That’s less than 1 percent to the bill, but in terms of saving lives and getting us back to normal, that under 1 percent is by far the most important thing if we can get it in there.
Speaking of therapeutics, if you were in the hospital and you have the disease and you’re looking over the doctor’s shoulder, what treatment are you going to ask for?
Remdesivir. Sadly the trials in the US have been so chaotic that the actual proven effect is kind of small. Potentially the effect is much larger than that. It’s insane how confused the trials here in the US have been. The supply of that is going up in the US; it will be quite available for the next few months. Also dexamethasone—it’s actually a fairly cheap drug—that’s for late-stage disease.
I’m assuming you’re not going to have trouble paying for it, Bill, so you could ask for anything.
Well, I don’t want special treatment, so that’s a tricky thing. Other antivirals are two to three months away. Antibodies are two to three months away. We’ve had about a factor-of-two improvement in hospital outcomes already, and that’s with just remdesivir and dexamethasone. These other things will be additive to that.
You helped fund a Covid diagnostic testing program in Seattle that got quicker results, and it wasn’t so intrusive. The FDA put it on pause. What happened?
There’s this thing where the health worker jams the deep turbinate, in the back of your nose, which actually hurts and makes you sneeze on the healthy worker. We showed that the quality of the results can be equivalent if you just put a self-test in the tip of your nose with a cotton swab. The FDA made us jump through some hoops to prove that you didn’t need to refrigerate the result, that it could go back in a dry plastic bag, and so on. So the delay there was just normal double checking, maybe overly careful but not based on some political angle. Because of what we have done at FDA, you can buy these cheaper swabs that are available by the billions. So anybody who’s using the deep turbinate now is just out of date. It’s a mistake, because it slows things down.
But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.
Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.
Why don’t we just do that?
Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.
As someone who has built your life on science and logic, I’m curious what you think when you see so many people signing onto this anti-science view of the world.
Well, strangely, I’m involved in almost everything that anti-science is fighting. I’m involved with climate change, GMOs, and vaccines. The irony is that it’s digital social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, “OK, there’s just an evil person, and that explains all of this.” And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger].
Well, you’re friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Have you talked to him about this?
After I said this publicly, he sent me mail. I like Mark, I think he’s got very good values, but he and I do disagree on the trade-offs involved there. The lies are so titillating you have to be able to see them and at least slow them down. Like that video where, what do they call her, the sperm woman? That got over 10 million views! [Note: It was more than 20 million.] Well how good are these guys at blocking things, where once something got the 10 million views and everybody was talking about it, they didn’t delete the link or the searchability? So it was meaningless. They claim, “Oh, now we don’t have it.” What effect did that have? Anybody can go watch that thing! So I am a little bit at odds with the way that these conspiracy theories spread, many of which are anti-vaccine things. We give literally tens of billions for vaccines to save lives, then people turn around saying, “No, we’re trying to make money and we’re trying to end lives.” That’s kind of a wild inversion of what our values are and what our track record is.
As you are the technology adviser to Microsoft, I think you can look forward in a few months to fighting this battle yourself when the company owns TikTok.
Yeah, my critique of dance moves will be fantastically value-added for them.
TikTok is more than just dance moves. There’s political content.
I know, I’m kidding. You’re right. Who knows what’s going to happen with that deal. But yes, it’s a poison chalice. Being big in the social media business is no simple game, like the encryption issue.
So are you wary of Microsoft getting into that game?
I mean, this may sound self-serving, but I think that the game being more competitive is probably a good thing. But having Trump kill off the only competitor, it’s pretty bizarre.
Do you understand what rule or regulation the president is invoking to demand that TikTok sell to an American company and then take a cut of the sales price?
I agree that the principle this is proceeding on is singly strange. The cut thing, that’s doubly strange. Anyway, Microsoft will have to deal with all of that.
You have been very cautious in staying away from the political arena. But the issues you care most about—public health and climate change—have had huge setbacks because of who leads the country. Are you reconsidering spending on political change?
The foundation needs to be bipartisan. Whoever gets elected in the US, we are going to want to work with them. We do care a lot about competence, and hopefully voters will take into account how this administration has done at picking competent people and should that weigh into their vote. But there’s going to be plenty of money on both sides of this election, and I don’t like diverting money to political things. Even though the pandemic has made it pretty clear we should expect better, there’s other people who will put their time into the campaigning piece.
Did you have deja vu last week when those tech CEOs testified remotely before Congress?
Yeah. I had a whole committee attacking me, and they had four at a time. I mean, Jesus Christ, what’s the Congress coming to? If you want to give a guy a hard time, give him at least a whole day that he has to sit there on the hot seat by himself! And they didn’t even have to get on a plane!
Do you think the antitrust concerns are the same as when Microsoft was under the gun, or has the landscape changed?
Even without antitrust rules, tech does tend to be quite competitive. And even though in the short run you don’t think it’s going to dislodge people, there will be changes that will keep bringing prices down. But there are a lot of valid issues, and if you’re super-successful, the pleasure of going in front of the Congress comes with the territory.
How has your life changed living under the pandemic?
I used to travel a lot. If I wanted to see President Macron and say, “Hey, give money for the coronavirus vaccine,” to really show I’m serious I’d go there. Now, we had a GAVI replenishment summit where I just sat at home and got up a little early. I am able to get a lot done. My kids are home more than I thought they would be, which at least for me is a nice thing. I’m microwaving more food. I’m getting fairly good at it. The pandemic sadly is less painful for those who were better off before the pandemic.
Do you have a go-to mask you use?
No, I use a pretty ugly normal mask. I change it every day. Maybe I should get a designer mask or something creative, but I just use this surgical-looking mask.
Updated 8 -7-2020, 10:00 am EDT: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Francis Collins' name.
https://www.wonkette.com/ben-sasse-is-willing-to-sacrifice-your-kids-for-college-football-why-arent-you
From NBC Sports:
FAUCI: This is a respiratory virus, so it's going to be spread by shedding virus. The problem with virus shedding is that if I have it in my nasal pharynx, and it sheds and I wipe my hand against my nose—now it's on my hand. You see, then I touch my chest or my thigh, then it's on my chest or my thigh for at least a few hours. Sweat as such won't transmit it. But if people are in such close contact as football players are on every single play, then that's the perfect set up for spreading. I would think that if there is an infected football player on the field—a middle linebacker, a tackle, whoever it is it—as soon as they hit the next guy, the chances are that they will be shedding virus all over that person.
https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain
https://twitter.com/monicamedinadc
Astonishing Walk In Tubs For Seniors On The Sale Now! You Should Research Safe Step Walk In Tub. Tabs, Aug. 12, 2020
Tabs gifs by your friend Martini Ambassador!
Well who's happy this morning/afternoon before this morning? Me too! Come in, let's get cracking!
KAMALA!
Oh good, here's today's previously missing tweet
"It's a very special moment when something that you expected to happen actually does and your feelings are still so overwhelming." — Jessica Tarlov at (doublechecks) Fox News
United Farmworkers all like FUK YEH! (UFW)
EAT!
This apron could have a Kamala on it. Or a Smokin' Joe!https://wonkettebazaar.com/collections/kamala-2020/products/mommyblog-recipe-hub-apron?variant=32511894716495
DRINK!
https://wonkettebazaar.com/products/joe-biden-kamala-harris-shot-glass-double-set
Oh sad. "'I thought she was the meanest, the most horrible most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate,' Trump said while addressing Harris' exchanges with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing." — USA Today
Your Excellency, some asshole's been signing your name to stupid tweets.
Let's learn more about Bishop Tobin, like "Bishop Tobin says child abuse was outside his responsibility," well if anything that just makes too much sense. — Providence Journal
Karine Jean-Pierre will be Harris's chief of staff. Good! She is smart and lovely! (NBC News)
Also:
Oh Cory Booker you sweetling nerd!
Chomsky on Biden: Left because the activists push. (THIS IS A GOOD THING, I ALREADY KNOW WHICH OF YOU WILL BE JERKS.) — Anand, The Ink
And OH, my favorite SNL sketch in YEARS. Ten minutes and still not bored, pls to enjoy!
How to beat populists when facts don't matter. Anne Applebaum looks at the information silo divide not just here but in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere, and somehow Russia keeps coming up but it's not about Russia, they just HAPPEN to be the news source for the far-Right all over the world! Luckily, noting that is McCarthyism, because at some point Glen Greenwald started making common cause with Russia and calling everyone who opposes that bad leftists? Anyway. Shy might have givebn me some tequila. — The Atlantic
Speaking of, the fuck's happening in Belarus? Since the conservatives at the Bulwark emailed me their primer first, that is the primer you get. (Bulwark)
What's keeping Washington from a coronavirus deal? Oh, same old. (AP)
"The federal government has systematically shortchanged communities with large Black populations in the distribution of billions of dollars in Covid-19 relief aid meant to help hospitals struggling to manage the effects of the pandemic, according to a study published Friday." The fuck you even say? — StatNews
Is she a doctor of philosophy, with a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to her knees? Because Ben Shapiro's wife is bad at pussy medicine.
Speaking as a NOT ANTI-VAXXER, it seems fair to ask whether vaccines under Trump's intensely politicized administration won't ACTUALLY KILLY YOU. Same for Putin, as in "I think it's really scary. It's really risky," per the New York Times.
ProPublica sorry to inform us Trump spent $500 MILLION too much for ventilators we already had contracts for (they are not sorry). — ProPublica
A really interesting oooooold old tab from Sara Robinson's brother in prison, about the different ways the prison would make money off its inmate pals, in light of San Francisco's making all inmate calls free from now on. (Orcinus blogspot, told you it was old)
Molly Jong-Fast tells some gossip about her family and Martha Stewart's family, as one does if one is a Jong, a Fast, or a Schoenkopf (if we had any gossip about Martha Stewart, WE WOULD). — New York Review of Books
How, HOW had I never heard of Inez Milholland, woman's rights champion? (Washington Post)
OK I'm done bye bye~
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.
Wonkette is ad-free and funded ONLY by YOU. Give us money or buy our shit.
KAMALA!
Oh good, here's today's previously missing tweet
United Farmworkers all like FUK YEH! (UFW)
EAT!
DRINK!
Oh sad. "'I thought she was the meanest, the most horrible most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate,' Trump said while addressing Harris' exchanges with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing." — USA Today
Your Excellency, some asshole's been signing your name to stupid tweets.
Karine Jean-Pierre will be Harris's chief of staff. Good! She is smart and lovely! (NBC News)
Also:
'I Cannot Let This Happen': Karine Jean-Pierre On Blocking Sen. Kamala Harris | Morning Joe | MSNBCwww.youtube.com
Oh Cory Booker you sweetling nerd!
And OH, my favorite SNL sketch in YEARS. Ten minutes and still not bored, pls to enjoy!
DNC Town Hall - SNLyoutu.be
How to beat populists when facts don't matter. Anne Applebaum looks at the information silo divide not just here but in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere, and somehow Russia keeps coming up but it's not about Russia, they just HAPPEN to be the news source for the far-Right all over the world! Luckily, noting that is McCarthyism, because at some point Glen Greenwald started making common cause with Russia and calling everyone who opposes that bad leftists? Anyway. Shy might have givebn me some tequila. — The Atlantic
Speaking of, the fuck's happening in Belarus? Since the conservatives at the Bulwark emailed me their primer first, that is the primer you get. (Bulwark)
What's keeping Washington from a coronavirus deal? Oh, same old. (AP)
"The federal government has systematically shortchanged communities with large Black populations in the distribution of billions of dollars in Covid-19 relief aid meant to help hospitals struggling to manage the effects of the pandemic, according to a study published Friday." The fuck you even say? — StatNews
Is she a doctor of philosophy, with a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to her knees? Because Ben Shapiro's wife is bad at pussy medicine.
ProPublica sorry to inform us Trump spent $500 MILLION too much for ventilators we already had contracts for (they are not sorry). — ProPublica
A really interesting oooooold old tab from Sara Robinson's brother in prison, about the different ways the prison would make money off its inmate pals, in light of San Francisco's making all inmate calls free from now on. (Orcinus blogspot, told you it was old)
Molly Jong-Fast tells some gossip about her family and Martha Stewart's family, as one does if one is a Jong, a Fast, or a Schoenkopf (if we had any gossip about Martha Stewart, WE WOULD). — New York Review of Books
How, HOW had I never heard of Inez Milholland, woman's rights champion? (Washington Post)
OK I'm done bye bye~
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This was so good it was worth sharing again...
https://www.wonkette.com/trump-says-1917-pandemic-ended-second-world-war-and-brb-bunker-time
Donald Trump's daily coronavirus lie press conference had a weird moment Monday afternoon. Aside from all his lies and boasting and lie-boasting and also his face.
He was in the middle of trying to read some words about the Dow, and then he stopped doing that because a man in a suit came and rescued him, from reading words:
To be clear, we don't know if it was actually Bunker Baby time, and we do know the Secret Service has to protect the president when Things Happen. Trump came back and said he was fine and that he wasn't rattled at all, does he seem rattled to you, no he was not rattled:
Unfortunately, Trump felt the need to continue his press conference after he came back, and sweet Jesus, what a fucking idiot.
Here is Donald Trump saying that in "1917" the Spanish flu (of 1918) "probably ended the Second World War," which was just a "terrible situation," how the "great pandemic" did that, and "probably ended the Second World War." Yeah, that was a total thing, just ask a historian like Dinesh D'Souza, he'll probably tell you how this is absolutely correct.
Let's see, what else did Donald Trump say? He said a whole bunch of car companies are "moving in" to Michigan, which is a thing that isn't happening. He said "in 90 days or less," that the "China virus" would be doing much better. Also something about how people should go vote, but we guess not by mail, because in Virginia they are apparently sending ballots to housecats. (As is sometimes the case, there is a real news story Trump is referring to, but did not actually do reading comprehension to, because he's a moron.)
He said he's going to "terminate" the payroll tax. You know, the one that funds Social Security and Medicare, which as we all know Americans just hate. (Joe Biden, CUT THE AD!)
He said that dumb shit where he thinks you won't have coronavirus cases if you don't test people, which is similar to how people don't ever have babies if they don't have a pregnancy test. When it was pointed out that 97,000 kids have tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks, Trump repeated his new dumbfucking lie that kids are basically "immune" to the virus.
Oh yeah, and he said he would not have called for Barack Obama's resignation if 160,000 had died in a pandemic and the blood was on Obama's hands the way it is with Trump's. (This is the longer clip of Trump lamenting how the "1917" Spanish flu of 1918 ended the "Second World War.") Trump said no he would not have, and then bragged about how awesomely he has performed at the Great Pandemic of 2020 where 160,000 Americans and counting have died.
Wait for it wait for it wait for it wait for it wait for it HEY-O LOOK!
So that's cool. Know how many people died of Ebola that year in America? One, just one.
Trump quite frankly came across like they had put valium in his Big Macs or something. Here, watch a video of Trump saying we shouldn't "politicize" the coronavirus, but instead should be united in hating China for sending it to us. (Or "releasing" it into Europe and the US, which he said later.) Try not to laugh.
Also try not to laugh at Trump reaffirming his accusation that Joe Biden is hurting God and the baby Jesus. Trump said you just have to "look at the manifesto that they've come up," which ... yeah, we have no fucking idea. Trump either has dementia, or he plays a dementia patient on TV. He also said the "Bernie plan," which is apparently also the Biden plan, is something you just simply cannot put "in the realm of a religious group of people," because that's a good way to say a thing in English. Then he bragged about his poll numbers and talked the "manifesto" (still don't fucking know) and talked about Joe Biden thumping baby Jesus right behind his ears and ...
Trump said more gibberish about how he had to do an executive order to cover pre-existing conditions, even though that is literally what Obamacare does, and he's been trying to murder Obamacare since the beginning. (And is doing it right now.) He claimed that when he said nobody had ever done that before, all he meant was nobody had ever done an executive order on it, we guess because of how they passed and signed a law instead. They really have him convinced that his HEREBY ORDERS mean something, don't they?
And finally, we are going to have MUCH MORE on this later today, but here is the part where Trump says "the Democrats are meddling" in our elections, because they want to do mail-in ballots. We will have more on what Trump is doing to the post office right now to steal the election, and we will have more as it relates to the statement from National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) director William Evanina confirming that Russia is actively attacking the election to help Trump.
In this clip, note how Trump says China and Iran are also meddling in the election, which is not what Evanina's statement said at all. This is going to be part of Trump's game, though — sure, Russia helped him, but also too, China and Iran helped Joe Biden! (Even though there is no evidence China and Iran are actually attacking the election the way Russia is.)
Just watch.
There is no aspect of this election Trump will not work to undermine, like the dumbfuck authoritarian shitheel he is.
Aren't you glad Trump didn't stay in the bunker hiding, allegedly, but instead came back to finish his press conference? Oh boy, what a treat.
[CNBC]
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE!
He was in the middle of trying to read some words about the Dow, and then he stopped doing that because a man in a suit came and rescued him, from reading words:
President Trump exits press briefing after shooting on White House groundswww.youtube.com
There was something that happened outside the White House gates where the Secret Service shot somebody. But, like, is this supposed to impress us in some way? Oh no, Donald Trump must be rushed off to the bunker, because something happened outside the very tall White House walls he has been constructing, because of how he is afraid of the American people! Whatever, President Jackoff.To be clear, we don't know if it was actually Bunker Baby time, and we do know the Secret Service has to protect the president when Things Happen. Trump came back and said he was fine and that he wasn't rattled at all, does he seem rattled to you, no he was not rattled:
"There was an actual shooting, and somebody has been taken to the hospital. I don't know the condition of the person," Trump told reporters after returning to the White House briefing room about nine minutes later. [...]Yes, Mr. non-rattled president, the world is a very dangerous place, it is like BOO!
"I don't know, do I seem rattled?" he said when a reporter asked if he was rattled.
"The world has been, you look back over the centuries, the world has been a dangerous place, a very dangerous place."
Unfortunately, Trump felt the need to continue his press conference after he came back, and sweet Jesus, what a fucking idiot.
Here is Donald Trump saying that in "1917" the Spanish flu (of 1918) "probably ended the Second World War," which was just a "terrible situation," how the "great pandemic" did that, and "probably ended the Second World War." Yeah, that was a total thing, just ask a historian like Dinesh D'Souza, he'll probably tell you how this is absolutely correct.
Let's see, what else did Donald Trump say? He said a whole bunch of car companies are "moving in" to Michigan, which is a thing that isn't happening. He said "in 90 days or less," that the "China virus" would be doing much better. Also something about how people should go vote, but we guess not by mail, because in Virginia they are apparently sending ballots to housecats. (As is sometimes the case, there is a real news story Trump is referring to, but did not actually do reading comprehension to, because he's a moron.)
He said he's going to "terminate" the payroll tax. You know, the one that funds Social Security and Medicare, which as we all know Americans just hate. (Joe Biden, CUT THE AD!)
He said that dumb shit where he thinks you won't have coronavirus cases if you don't test people, which is similar to how people don't ever have babies if they don't have a pregnancy test. When it was pointed out that 97,000 kids have tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks, Trump repeated his new dumbfucking lie that kids are basically "immune" to the virus.
Oh yeah, and he said he would not have called for Barack Obama's resignation if 160,000 had died in a pandemic and the blood was on Obama's hands the way it is with Trump's. (This is the longer clip of Trump lamenting how the "1917" Spanish flu of 1918 ended the "Second World War.") Trump said no he would not have, and then bragged about how awesomely he has performed at the Great Pandemic of 2020 where 160,000 Americans and counting have died.
Wait for it wait for it wait for it wait for it wait for it HEY-O LOOK!
So that's cool. Know how many people died of Ebola that year in America? One, just one.
Trump quite frankly came across like they had put valium in his Big Macs or something. Here, watch a video of Trump saying we shouldn't "politicize" the coronavirus, but instead should be united in hating China for sending it to us. (Or "releasing" it into Europe and the US, which he said later.) Try not to laugh.
Also try not to laugh at Trump reaffirming his accusation that Joe Biden is hurting God and the baby Jesus. Trump said you just have to "look at the manifesto that they've come up," which ... yeah, we have no fucking idea. Trump either has dementia, or he plays a dementia patient on TV. He also said the "Bernie plan," which is apparently also the Biden plan, is something you just simply cannot put "in the realm of a religious group of people," because that's a good way to say a thing in English. Then he bragged about his poll numbers and talked the "manifesto" (still don't fucking know) and talked about Joe Biden thumping baby Jesus right behind his ears and ...
Trump said more gibberish about how he had to do an executive order to cover pre-existing conditions, even though that is literally what Obamacare does, and he's been trying to murder Obamacare since the beginning. (And is doing it right now.) He claimed that when he said nobody had ever done that before, all he meant was nobody had ever done an executive order on it, we guess because of how they passed and signed a law instead. They really have him convinced that his HEREBY ORDERS mean something, don't they?
And finally, we are going to have MUCH MORE on this later today, but here is the part where Trump says "the Democrats are meddling" in our elections, because they want to do mail-in ballots. We will have more on what Trump is doing to the post office right now to steal the election, and we will have more as it relates to the statement from National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) director William Evanina confirming that Russia is actively attacking the election to help Trump.
In this clip, note how Trump says China and Iran are also meddling in the election, which is not what Evanina's statement said at all. This is going to be part of Trump's game, though — sure, Russia helped him, but also too, China and Iran helped Joe Biden! (Even though there is no evidence China and Iran are actually attacking the election the way Russia is.)
Just watch.
There is no aspect of this election Trump will not work to undermine, like the dumbfuck authoritarian shitheel he is.
Aren't you glad Trump didn't stay in the bunker hiding, allegedly, but instead came back to finish his press conference? Oh boy, what a treat.
[CNBC]
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE!
https://www.wonkette.com/trump-plans-gop-convention-at-white-house-because-f-ck-it-if-youre-gonna-steal-steal-big
https://www.quora.com/Donald-Trump-is-suing-CNN-for-an-opinion-piece-Can-someone-be-sued-for-having-an-opinion
Answered March 7 · Upvoted by
, M.S.; B.A Law & Informatics, Umeå University (1999) and
, studied Journalism & English at The University of Alabama (1983)
, M.S.; B.A Law & Informatics, Umeå University (1999) and
, studied Journalism & English at The University of Alabama (1983)
I take it you’re talking about this?:
As you can see, Trump is alleging that CNN committed an act of Libel against him, by suggesting that his campaign would be seeking assistance from Russia to help in the next election. Unfortunately, he can do exactly that: even if a journalist writes an opinion piece asserting as much, the news network is entirely responsible for publishing it. If, as Trump claims, the piece was libelous, CNN would be held accountable for that.
Of course, this is all bearing in mind that Trump has actively said:
"If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent' -- oh, I think I'd want to hear it."
In the same interview:
“It’s not an interference, they have information — I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI — if I thought there was something wrong.”
Trump also ought to be wary of the fact that he reached out to both Ukraine and China in seeking out dirt on a political opponent (which, by itself, counts as seeking foreign interference), and he’s actively denied that the Russians engaged in election interference in 2016, despite every credible US intelligence agency confirming that this is exactly what happened. Mueller similarly backed up that conclusion, observing that the Russians had interfered, and that Trump had known about, expected to benefit from and even lied about said interference.
Not exactly a long shot to imagine that history might repeat itself, is it, Donald?
It’s worth noting that the First Amendment protects Freedom of the Press, and one can find charges of defamation or libel dismissed on the grounds of it being opinion: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan established that Trump would be required to demonstrate that the journalist in question had “actual malice” at time of writing - thus, that they deliberately posted information that was not true, with the intention of harming the person’s reputation.
Little hard to prove, realistically speaking. After all, we have the conclusions of multiple intelligence agencies as well as a Federal investigation that confirm that Trump has benefitted from Russian interference before, and would welcome further foreign interference in future.
Calling something “opinion” will not protect you if you are making a statement of fact.
“It is my opinion that Joe Joakes rapes 6-year-old girls” is a statement of (alleged) fact masquerading as opinion.
TL;DR: anybody can sue anybody over anything, but IMO this lawsuit is a publicity stunt and the Trump campaign has no intention of actually letting it go to trial because it would be a disaster for the President.
So, yes, if CNN said that President Trump said or did something that the public will perceive as bad, then the President can sue them.
Actually, anybody can sue anybody else for anything they want. All it takes is a few $100 to pay the filing fee. Plus whatever you pay your lawyer, if you have one. That doesn’t guarantee that you’ll win, of course.
But I will predict with some confidence that President Trump will either drop the lawsuit entirely, or settle for a trivial amount of money. Why? Two reasons.
- It is very difficult for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit. The plaintiff has to prove that whatever the defendant said/printed was false, but must also prove Actual malice — that the defendant made the false statement knowing that it was false or with reckless disregard whether it was false or not.
- If the lawsuit were to go to trial, CNN would subpoena Trump. He would have to appear in court and answer questions under oath. Trump is (I’m fairly sure) not stupid enough to do that. His penchant for saying whatever he thinks will make him look good — as opposed to what actually happened — will inevitably lead to lying on the stand which would open him up to prosecution for perjury.
OTOH, maybe he will. He apparently has a record of lying under oath, but only in affadavits, not on the stand. The latter is much more likely to get him prosecuted for perjury. See
Donald Trump's history of lying under oath
I've Watched Trump Testify Under Oath. It Isn't Pretty.
I would hope that the Trump Campaign had the brains to file their little lawsuits in a “red” state. If he filed it in NY or CA and it goes to trial or even deposition, he’s going to face prosecution for perjury as soon as he says something demonstrably false.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/08/10/2138205/people-typically-experience-shifting-mental-disorders-over-their-lifespan-study-finds
People Typically Experience Shifting Mental Disorders Over Their Lifespan, Study Finds (psypost.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PsyPost:New research based on four decades of longitudinal data indicates that it is rare for a person to receive and keep a single mental disorder diagnosis. Rather, experiencing different successive mental disorders appears to be the norm. The findings, published in JAMA Open, suggest that psychiatrists and other mental health professionals should move toward adopting a life-course perspective on mental disorders.
The researchers examined data from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study in New Zealand, which used repeated standardized psychiatric assessments to track 17 mental health conditions from age 11 to age 45. The study included more than one thousand participants and the mental health conditions were diagnosed according to DSM criteria. "These disorders included externalizing disorders (for example, ADHD, conduct disorder, substance dependence), internalizing disorders (for example, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD), and thought disorders (for example, mania, schizophrenia, OCD). This is the most detailed time series of mental-disorder life-histories ever assembled," explained Avshalom Caspi, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
The study also included neurocognitive examinations during childhood and adolescence, along with a neuroimaging-based assessment of brain aging at age 45. About one-third of the participants experienced the initial onset of a disorder by age 15 years and 86% met the criteria for at least one disorder by age 45 years. The researchers found an "ebb and flow" of mental disorders over time. Participants with a disorder from any one of the three diagnostic families were at higher risk for disorders from other diagnostic families in the future. Participants characterized by one consistent mental disorder were not the norm. "The primary finding is that over decades, individuals experience many changing disorder types, shifting between internalizing, externalizing, and/or thought disorder families. People seldom 'get' one disorder and keep it. Every disorder predicted significantly increased risk for every other disorder," Caspi told PsyPost.
The researchers examined data from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study in New Zealand, which used repeated standardized psychiatric assessments to track 17 mental health conditions from age 11 to age 45. The study included more than one thousand participants and the mental health conditions were diagnosed according to DSM criteria. "These disorders included externalizing disorders (for example, ADHD, conduct disorder, substance dependence), internalizing disorders (for example, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD), and thought disorders (for example, mania, schizophrenia, OCD). This is the most detailed time series of mental-disorder life-histories ever assembled," explained Avshalom Caspi, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
The study also included neurocognitive examinations during childhood and adolescence, along with a neuroimaging-based assessment of brain aging at age 45. About one-third of the participants experienced the initial onset of a disorder by age 15 years and 86% met the criteria for at least one disorder by age 45 years. The researchers found an "ebb and flow" of mental disorders over time. Participants with a disorder from any one of the three diagnostic families were at higher risk for disorders from other diagnostic families in the future. Participants characterized by one consistent mental disorder were not the norm. "The primary finding is that over decades, individuals experience many changing disorder types, shifting between internalizing, externalizing, and/or thought disorder families. People seldom 'get' one disorder and keep it. Every disorder predicted significantly increased risk for every other disorder," Caspi told PsyPost.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/08/10/2353230/what-mars-would-look-like-if-its-surface-was-covered-with-water
What Mars Would Look Like If Its Surface Was Covered With Water (inverse.com)
schwit1 writes:A new map shows what the red planet would look like if 71 percent of its surface area was covered with water -- around the same proportion as Earth. The results are spectacular: it shows two distinct landmasses forming, each of which would seem to form continents. While the left side shows a dramatic, mountainous terrain that includes Olympus Mons, the right side seems to offer more flatlands that include planes like Terra Sabaea.
The map was created by Aaditya Raj Bhattarai, a Nepal-based civil engineering student currently studying for his bachelor's degree at Tribhuwan University. "I am [a] big fan of Elon [Musk] and SpaceX and their plan to put man on Mars, and I hope I could help in his cause," Bhattarai says. "This is a part of my side project where I calculate the volume of water required to make life on Mars sustainable and the sources required for those water volumes from comets that will come nearby Mars in [the] next 100 years." [...] Bhattarai noted that in this map, Mars' sea level lies as low as 1,211 meters (0.75 miles) below the geoid level, a level that averages out the ocean surface by removing factors like tides and currents. The sea level also lies a staggering 20,076 meters (12.5 miles) below Olympus Mons, depicted in the image as the top-left-most black dot. Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system and measures more than double the height of Mount Everest.
The map was created by Aaditya Raj Bhattarai, a Nepal-based civil engineering student currently studying for his bachelor's degree at Tribhuwan University. "I am [a] big fan of Elon [Musk] and SpaceX and their plan to put man on Mars, and I hope I could help in his cause," Bhattarai says. "This is a part of my side project where I calculate the volume of water required to make life on Mars sustainable and the sources required for those water volumes from comets that will come nearby Mars in [the] next 100 years." [...] Bhattarai noted that in this map, Mars' sea level lies as low as 1,211 meters (0.75 miles) below the geoid level, a level that averages out the ocean surface by removing factors like tides and currents. The sea level also lies a staggering 20,076 meters (12.5 miles) below Olympus Mons, depicted in the image as the top-left-most black dot. Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system and measures more than double the height of Mount Everest.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/08/11/001234/planet-ceres-is-an-ocean-world-with-sea-water-beneath-surface-mission-finds
Planet Ceres Is An 'Ocean World' With Sea Water Beneath Surface, Mission Finds (theguardian.com)
The dwarf planet Ceres -- long believed to be a barren space rock -- is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday. The Guardian reports:Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface. Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analyzed images relayed from the orbiter, captured about 35km (22 miles) from the asteroid. They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and determined that there is an "extensive reservoir" of brine beneath its surface.
Using infrared imaging, one team discovered the presence of the compound hydrohalite -- a material common in sea ice but which until now had never been observed off of Earth. Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica said hydrohalite was a clear sign Ceres used to have sea water. "We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons," she told AFP. The team said the salt deposits looked like they had built up within the last 2 million years -- the blink of an eye in space time. This suggests that the brine may still be ascending from the planet's interior, something De Sanctis said could have profound implications in future studies.
Writing in an accompanying comment article, Julie Castillo-Rogez, from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the discovery of hydrohalite was a "smoking gun" for ongoing water activity. "That material is unstable on Ceres' surface, and hence must have been emplaced very recently," she said. In a separate paper, US-based researchers analyzed images of the Occator crater and found that its mounds and hills may have formed when water ejected by the impact of a meteor froze on the surface.
Using infrared imaging, one team discovered the presence of the compound hydrohalite -- a material common in sea ice but which until now had never been observed off of Earth. Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica said hydrohalite was a clear sign Ceres used to have sea water. "We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons," she told AFP. The team said the salt deposits looked like they had built up within the last 2 million years -- the blink of an eye in space time. This suggests that the brine may still be ascending from the planet's interior, something De Sanctis said could have profound implications in future studies.
Writing in an accompanying comment article, Julie Castillo-Rogez, from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the discovery of hydrohalite was a "smoking gun" for ongoing water activity. "That material is unstable on Ceres' surface, and hence must have been emplaced very recently," she said. In a separate paper, US-based researchers analyzed images of the Occator crater and found that its mounds and hills may have formed when water ejected by the impact of a meteor froze on the surface.
Facebook Removed Seven Million Posts In Second Quarter For False Coronavirus Info
Facebook said on Tuesday it removed 7 million posts in the second quarter for sharing false information about the novel coronavirus, including content that promoted fake preventative measures and exaggerated cures. Reuters reports:It released the data as part of its sixth Community Standards Enforcement Report, which it introduced in 2018 along with more stringent decorum rules in response to a backlash over its lax approach to policing content on its platforms. The world's biggest social network said it would invite proposals from experts this week to audit the metrics used in the report, beginning in 2021. It committed to the audit during a July ad boycott over hate speech practices.
The company removed about 22.5 million posts with hate speech on its flagship app in the second quarter, a dramatic increase from 9.6 million in the first quarter. It attributed the jump to improvements in detection technology. It also deleted 8.7 million posts connected to "terrorist" organizations, compared with 6.3 million in the prior period. It took down less material from "organized hate" groups: 4 million pieces of content, compared to 4.7 million in the first quarter. The company does not disclose changes in the prevalence of hateful content on its platforms, which civil rights groups say makes reports on its removal less meaningful.
The company removed about 22.5 million posts with hate speech on its flagship app in the second quarter, a dramatic increase from 9.6 million in the first quarter. It attributed the jump to improvements in detection technology. It also deleted 8.7 million posts connected to "terrorist" organizations, compared with 6.3 million in the prior period. It took down less material from "organized hate" groups: 4 million pieces of content, compared to 4.7 million in the first quarter. The company does not disclose changes in the prevalence of hateful content on its platforms, which civil rights groups say makes reports on its removal less meaningful.
Police Use of Facial Recognition Violates Human Rights, UK Court Rules (arstechnica.com)
An appeals court ruled today that police use of facial recognition technology in the UK has "fundamental deficiencies" and violates several laws. Ars Technica reports:South Wales Police began using automated facial recognition technology on a trial basis in 2017, deploying a system called AFR Locate overtly at several dozen major events such as soccer matches. Police matched the scans against watchlists of known individuals to identify persons who were wanted by the police, had open warrants against them, or were in some other way persons of interest. In 2019, Cardiff resident Ed Bridges filed suit against the police, alleging that having his face scanned in 2017 and 2018 was a violation of his legal rights. Although he was backed by UK civil rights organization Liberty, Bridges lost his suit in 2019, but the Court of Appeal today overturned that ruling, finding that the South Wales Police facial recognition program was unlawful.
"Too much discretion is currently left to individual police officers," the court ruled. "It is not clear who can be placed on the watchlist, nor is it clear that there are any criteria for determining where AFR can be deployed." The police did not sufficiently investigate if the software in use exhibited race or gender bias, the court added. The South Wales Police in 2018 released data admitting that about 2,300 of nearly 2,500 matches -- roughly 92 percent -- the software made at an event in 2017 were false positives. The ruling did not completely ban the use of facial recognition tech inside the UK, but does narrow the scope of what is permissible and what law enforcement agencies have to do to be in compliance with human rights law. Other police inside the UK who deploy facial recognition technology will have to meet the standard set by today's ruling. That includes the Metropolitan Police in London, who deployed a similar type of system earlier this year.
"Too much discretion is currently left to individual police officers," the court ruled. "It is not clear who can be placed on the watchlist, nor is it clear that there are any criteria for determining where AFR can be deployed." The police did not sufficiently investigate if the software in use exhibited race or gender bias, the court added. The South Wales Police in 2018 released data admitting that about 2,300 of nearly 2,500 matches -- roughly 92 percent -- the software made at an event in 2017 were false positives. The ruling did not completely ban the use of facial recognition tech inside the UK, but does narrow the scope of what is permissible and what law enforcement agencies have to do to be in compliance with human rights law. Other police inside the UK who deploy facial recognition technology will have to meet the standard set by today's ruling. That includes the Metropolitan Police in London, who deployed a similar type of system earlier this year.
An artist’s impression of a black dwarf, a cooled-down stellar remnant that could form in trillions of years
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/08/11/231237/how-will-the-universe-end-scientists-say-they-may-have-an-answer
How Will the Universe End? Scientists Say They May Have an Answer (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine:In the unimaginably far future, cold stellar remnants known as black dwarfs will begin to explode in a spectacular series of supernovae, providing the final fireworks of all time. That's the conclusion of a new study, which posits that the universe will experience one last hurrah before everything goes dark forever. The dramatic detonations will begin to occur about 10^1100 years from now, a number the human brain can scarcely comprehend. The already unfathomable number 10^100 is known as a googol, so 10^1100 would be a googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol years. The explosions would continue until 10^32000 years from now, which would require most of a magazine page to represent in a similar fashion.
A time traveler hoping to witness this last cosmic display would be disappointed. By the start of this era, the mysterious substance acting in opposition to gravity called dark energy will have driven everything in the universe apart so much that each individual black dwarf would be surrounded by vast darkness: The supernovae would even be unobservable to each another.The study has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
A time traveler hoping to witness this last cosmic display would be disappointed. By the start of this era, the mysterious substance acting in opposition to gravity called dark energy will have driven everything in the universe apart so much that each individual black dwarf would be surrounded by vast darkness: The supernovae would even be unobservable to each another.The study has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
https://www.wonkette.com/qanon-candidate-marjorie-taylor-greene-is-also-9-11-truther-because-crank-magnetism
screencap
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single person in possession of a belief in one really stupid conspiracy must also believe in a bunch of other, equally stupid conspiracy theories. Like potato chips, you can't have just one. You can't just believe in chemtrails or QAnon or a flat earth or that you have a bunch of alien hybrid babies somewhere floating around the universe, you have to also believe that orgone or vinegar can protect you from said chemtrails, that satanic ritual abuse is real, that the moon landing was faked or that you can activate your alien starseed DNA by listening to techno on YouTube.
Sometimes this is simple maintenance. In order to believe in one very stupid thing is true, you have to believe in a bunch of other stupid things that support that belief. Sometimes it's just general crank magnetism. Once you decide one impossible thing is true, other impossible things seem a lot more plausible.
Thus, it should not surprise you at all to learn that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the woman most likely to become the first QAnon nutbag in Congress, was also a 9/11 truther who believed Barack Obama was a Secret Muslin.
Yesterday, Media Matters revealed the existence of a video in which Greene claimed that a plane had not ever crashed into the Pentagon, despite the fact that a plane definitely did crash into the Pentagon.
Barack Obama, for the record, was not a Muslim. Also there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim. It's not illegal! Also, just for the record, if he were a Muslim posing as a Christian who also faked a birth certificate or whatever else he did, would he not have also been clever enough to change his middle name? Like he's gonna go through all that, fake being an American, fake being a Christian, but keep the middle name "Hussein"? Really?
Another investigation, by NBC's Brandy Zadrozny, uncovered a now-defunct website called "American Truth Seekers" for which Greene wrote multiple articles. In them, she not only accused Democrats of being baby-eating Satanic pedophiles, but she also claimed multiple mass shootings were false flags designed to weaken the Second Amendment, accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of having their enemies killed, and perpetuated the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was murdered by the DNC.
After Media Matters published the initial article, Greene responded via Twitter, complaining that she was being attacked for her opposition to open borders and "globalist neocon nation building wars." She then went on to complain about these wars as if she were not currently running for office as a member of the party that got us into them in the first place.
She then attempted to walk back her 9/11 trutherism, but defended it by saying "The problem is our government lies to us so much to protect the Deep State, it's hard sometimes to know what is real and what is not."
Yes, we all know the government lies to us. Usually not so much to protect the "deep state" as to help the wealthy and powerful become even more wealthy and powerful.
I certainly don't trust the government. This distrust, however, does not lead me to believe stupid things that I, or someone else, made up. A healthy distrust of the government means that you don't automatically believe everything you're told simply because it comes from someone in power, particularly when there are valid reasons to believe it's not true. You know, like the "weapons of mass destruction" that Marjorie Taylor Greene's party insists existed in Iraq! It gets unhealthy when you start following that up with hypotheticals and believing the hypotheticals and filling in the blanks yourself.
If your thought process is anything like...
A) The government lies.
B) The government says there is no such thing as flying elephants.
Therefore C) Dumbo was a documentary and the government has a fleet of flying elephants it uses for nefarious purposes of some kind
... then you are not a good detective and you should not use your brain to attempt to draw conclusions, ever. We may not always know whether or not something is a lie, but the thing we make up ourselves is almost always definitely not going to be true.
[Media Matters / NBC News]
Sometimes this is simple maintenance. In order to believe in one very stupid thing is true, you have to believe in a bunch of other stupid things that support that belief. Sometimes it's just general crank magnetism. Once you decide one impossible thing is true, other impossible things seem a lot more plausible.
Thus, it should not surprise you at all to learn that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the woman most likely to become the first QAnon nutbag in Congress, was also a 9/11 truther who believed Barack Obama was a Secret Muslin.
Yesterday, Media Matters revealed the existence of a video in which Greene claimed that a plane had not ever crashed into the Pentagon, despite the fact that a plane definitely did crash into the Pentagon.
During the video, Greene discussed the 9/11 attacks and stated, "We had witnessed 9/11, the terrorist attack in New York and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania and the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon. It's odd there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon. But anyways, I won't — I'm not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. But 9/11 had happened. Our country was very much into a war. We had invaded Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction that we never found at that time. We were basically destabilizing the Middle East."She then said, regarding Obama, "Yes. I do believe he is a Muslim. And yes, Valerie Jarrett is, too."
Barack Obama, for the record, was not a Muslim. Also there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim. It's not illegal! Also, just for the record, if he were a Muslim posing as a Christian who also faked a birth certificate or whatever else he did, would he not have also been clever enough to change his middle name? Like he's gonna go through all that, fake being an American, fake being a Christian, but keep the middle name "Hussein"? Really?
Another investigation, by NBC's Brandy Zadrozny, uncovered a now-defunct website called "American Truth Seekers" for which Greene wrote multiple articles. In them, she not only accused Democrats of being baby-eating Satanic pedophiles, but she also claimed multiple mass shootings were false flags designed to weaken the Second Amendment, accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of having their enemies killed, and perpetuated the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was murdered by the DNC.
After Media Matters published the initial article, Greene responded via Twitter, complaining that she was being attacked for her opposition to open borders and "globalist neocon nation building wars." She then went on to complain about these wars as if she were not currently running for office as a member of the party that got us into them in the first place.
She then attempted to walk back her 9/11 trutherism, but defended it by saying "The problem is our government lies to us so much to protect the Deep State, it's hard sometimes to know what is real and what is not."
Yes, we all know the government lies to us. Usually not so much to protect the "deep state" as to help the wealthy and powerful become even more wealthy and powerful.
I certainly don't trust the government. This distrust, however, does not lead me to believe stupid things that I, or someone else, made up. A healthy distrust of the government means that you don't automatically believe everything you're told simply because it comes from someone in power, particularly when there are valid reasons to believe it's not true. You know, like the "weapons of mass destruction" that Marjorie Taylor Greene's party insists existed in Iraq! It gets unhealthy when you start following that up with hypotheticals and believing the hypotheticals and filling in the blanks yourself.
If your thought process is anything like...
A) The government lies.
B) The government says there is no such thing as flying elephants.
Therefore C) Dumbo was a documentary and the government has a fleet of flying elephants it uses for nefarious purposes of some kind
... then you are not a good detective and you should not use your brain to attempt to draw conclusions, ever. We may not always know whether or not something is a lie, but the thing we make up ourselves is almost always definitely not going to be true.
[Media Matters / NBC News]
https://www.wonkette.com/harry-styles-is-the-most-unproblematic-famous-person-heres-15-moments-to-prove-it-tabs-fri-aug-14-2020
Tabs gifs by your friend Martini Ambassador!
Please Jesus.
Trump's new coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas: Bad at coronavirus, good at ??? (Media Matters)
Five Points on Scott Atlas. Silly Talking Points Memo, you are not Heavy.com!
IOWA ARE YOU OKAY? — National Geographic tells us what's a derecho.
A whole passel of assholes counterprotesting Missoula, Montana's Black Lives Matter protests tackled a Black teen to the ground because he was "suspicious." They then marched him over to the cops, said he had a gun (lie, but THEY all had guns), and went on their way. Looks like one (1) fella was charged with false imprisonment, and nobody else was? Anyway, he is very mad you think he's racist. (Missoulian)
Dolly Parton's Billboard interview: Come for the headline-making "Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter?" and stay to see how an artist businesswoman icon does it. Her explanation of how she pretty early changed the name of her "Dixie Stampede" is heartfelt. Why would you want to hurt anyone on purpose? — Billboard
Jack Hamilton's thoughts, meanwhile, on the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." — Slate
You know who sucks? Joe Kennedy III. Shoot, did I hurt someone on purpose? Well he shouldn't be such a Veruca Salt. I waaaant a US Senate seat and I want it now!
USPS tells Pennsylvania it can't deliver the ballots in time, after Republicans are already suing the state to ban drop boxes for ballots. (Inquirer)
What a teacher does when she sees you're seeing your mother get shot to death while you're zooming into school.
Oh Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Seth Rich truther too? Well who isn't? (Media Matters)
Jim Newell says the future of the House Republicans is fully unhinged. He means worse than now. — Slate
Mr. Filthy Mouth.
You may think that Yale, a private institution, can take "affirmative" "action" to remedy longstanding inequities when deciding which students to admit, but DOJ says no, because DOJ really hates racism. (Washington Post)
We are going to have to prosecute every last crook in the Trump admin. — Michelle Goldberg, New York Times
Thank you for explaining what the hell is wish.com — Vox
I got a FEVER! And the only prescription is a VEGGIE RX! (Civil Eats)
Well, fuck. Solar panels are starting to die out, which means what we gonna do with our toxic solar panel trash? — Grist
"Void fill." (EcoEnclose)
Speaking of voids, here is the foreword to Michael Cohen's book, which does not seem to be on Amazon? That can't be right, but I think it is right? Guess he's selling it out the back of Rudy Ray Moore's car.
I love these aprons so much. I don't even care only two of you are buying them, I will KEEP POSTING.
HI SHYYYYY. HIIIIIIII.https://wonkettebazaar.com/products/mommyblog-recipe-hub-apron
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.
Who loves you baby? It is your Wonkette. We're always free and here for you, so if you can, give us some goddamn money.
Trump's new coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas: Bad at coronavirus, good at ??? (Media Matters)
Five Points on Scott Atlas. Silly Talking Points Memo, you are not Heavy.com!
IOWA ARE YOU OKAY? — National Geographic tells us what's a derecho.
A whole passel of assholes counterprotesting Missoula, Montana's Black Lives Matter protests tackled a Black teen to the ground because he was "suspicious." They then marched him over to the cops, said he had a gun (lie, but THEY all had guns), and went on their way. Looks like one (1) fella was charged with false imprisonment, and nobody else was? Anyway, he is very mad you think he's racist. (Missoulian)
Dolly Parton's Billboard interview: Come for the headline-making "Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter?" and stay to see how an artist businesswoman icon does it. Her explanation of how she pretty early changed the name of her "Dixie Stampede" is heartfelt. Why would you want to hurt anyone on purpose? — Billboard
Jack Hamilton's thoughts, meanwhile, on the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." — Slate
The Last Waltz (1978) - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down Scene (5/7) | Movieclipsyoutu.be
You know who sucks? Joe Kennedy III. Shoot, did I hurt someone on purpose? Well he shouldn't be such a Veruca Salt. I waaaant a US Senate seat and I want it now!
USPS tells Pennsylvania it can't deliver the ballots in time, after Republicans are already suing the state to ban drop boxes for ballots. (Inquirer)
What a teacher does when she sees you're seeing your mother get shot to death while you're zooming into school.
The sheriff said six children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, were inside the home at the time of the shooting, and at least one of them was taking virtual learning during the first day of school in Martin County.— WPTV
"The child that was online was the 10-year-old," Snyder said. "The teacher's statement is that she heard a commotion. She did hear some high tone conversation, noticed some kind of confrontation, muted it, and then watched the 10-year-old put her hands up to her ears."
Oh Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Seth Rich truther too? Well who isn't? (Media Matters)
Jim Newell says the future of the House Republicans is fully unhinged. He means worse than now. — Slate
Mr. Filthy Mouth.
You may think that Yale, a private institution, can take "affirmative" "action" to remedy longstanding inequities when deciding which students to admit, but DOJ says no, because DOJ really hates racism. (Washington Post)
We are going to have to prosecute every last crook in the Trump admin. — Michelle Goldberg, New York Times
Thank you for explaining what the hell is wish.com — Vox
I got a FEVER! And the only prescription is a VEGGIE RX! (Civil Eats)
Well, fuck. Solar panels are starting to die out, which means what we gonna do with our toxic solar panel trash? — Grist
"Void fill." (EcoEnclose)
Speaking of voids, here is the foreword to Michael Cohen's book, which does not seem to be on Amazon? That can't be right, but I think it is right? Guess he's selling it out the back of Rudy Ray Moore's car.
I love these aprons so much. I don't even care only two of you are buying them, I will KEEP POSTING.
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.
Who loves you baby? It is your Wonkette. We're always free and here for you, so if you can, give us some goddamn money.
An Unusual Meteorite, More Valuable Than Gold, May Hold Life's Building Blocks (sciencemag.org)
Slashdot reader sciencehabit tells the strange story of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteor from "the cold void beyond Jupiter" that sent "blazing fireballs and rocks raining down on farms and fields."On 23 April 2019, a space rock the size of a washing machine broke up in the skies over Aguas Zarcas, a village carved out of Costa Rica's rainforest. The falling fragments, which crashed through roofs and doghouses, set off a frenzy of hunting — for this rare meteorite soon became more valuable than gold.
Meteorites are not uncommon: Every year, tens of thousands survive the plunge through Earth's atmosphere. But meteorite falls, witnessed strikes that take their name from where they land, are rare — just 1,196 have been documented. And even among that exclusive group, there was something extraordinary about this particular meteorite: The dull stone was, as far as rocks go, practically alive. Aguas Zarcas, as the fragments would soon collectively be called, is a carbonaceous chondrite, a pristine remnant of the early Solar System. The vast majority of meteorites are lumps of stone or metal. But carbonaceous chondrites are rich in carbon — including organic molecules as complex as amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. They illustrate how chemical reactions in space give rise to complex precursors for life; some scientists even believe rocks like Aguas Zarcas gave life a nudge when they crashed into a barren Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
Meteorites are not uncommon: Every year, tens of thousands survive the plunge through Earth's atmosphere. But meteorite falls, witnessed strikes that take their name from where they land, are rare — just 1,196 have been documented. And even among that exclusive group, there was something extraordinary about this particular meteorite: The dull stone was, as far as rocks go, practically alive. Aguas Zarcas, as the fragments would soon collectively be called, is a carbonaceous chondrite, a pristine remnant of the early Solar System. The vast majority of meteorites are lumps of stone or metal. But carbonaceous chondrites are rich in carbon — including organic molecules as complex as amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. They illustrate how chemical reactions in space give rise to complex precursors for life; some scientists even believe rocks like Aguas Zarcas gave life a nudge when they crashed into a barren Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
OAN Demands Twitter Stop Censoring QAnon Ideas Even They Won't Say On Air
According to QAnon lore, the one piece of the puzzle that was needed to set everything in motion was for a reporter from the mainstream media to ask Trump "the q." "The Q" being "Is QAnon real?"
It was then that he was supposed to look out to the people at home and solemnly say "My fellow Americans, the Storm is upon us." Or tweet it. One of the two.
They even have t-shirts. All kinds of paraphernalia, really. Google the phrase and all kinds of merchandise pops up.
According to "the plan" that the QAnon people are supposed to be #TrustThePlan-ing, this should have been a signal to his secret police who would immediately begin doing mass arrests of Democrats and Hollywood liberals, so that they can be tried in military tribunals and then publicly executed for their part in a global Satanic cabal whose primary purpose is sexually torturing and eating children. This is the "show" in #EnjoyTheShow. At some point during all of this, all of the family members and former friends of QAnon people who had previously ditched them for talking crazy all of the time will be very horrified and contact their family members and former friends to apologize for having been so cruel and to beg them to explain what is going on. There's supposed to be a lot of reeling and "Oh, how could we have been so blind! Our whole world is falling down around us!" The Q people, of course, will be very gracious and accept their apologies and bask in the glow of having been right all along.
That is what is supposed to be going on today, because yesterday, Jill Colvin, the White House reporter for the Associated Press, asked Trump if he believed in QAnon.
Q Okay. And then I wanted to ask you, you congratulated Marjorlie [sic] — Marjorie Taylor Greene in a tweet. You called her a future Republican star. Greene has been a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory. She said that's something that should be — would be worth listening to. Do you agree with her on that?It should not surprise you that the goalposts have since moved. Apparently, Trump not explicitly denying QAnon is proof that it is real now.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, she did very well in the election. She won by a lot. She was very popular. She comes from a great state. And she had a tremendous victory, so absolutely, I did congratulate her.
Please. Go ahead.
Q But specifically — specifically on QAnon —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Q — and her decision to embrace that conspiracy theory, do you agree with her on that? That was the question.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Jordan Sather, one of the biggest Qboosters on the internet — who somehow managed to escape that big ol Twitter purge of QAnon-related accounts, asked "President Trump just had all the chance in the world to condemn #QAnon right there at the White House podium and he didn't. What does that tell you?"
Personally, it tells me that he's an opportunist who probably does not really know what the fuck they're even on about.
Other devotees said that the reporter didn't ask the "Q" the exact right way — that they had to ask if Trump knows who Q is or if Q is part of his team in order to set the whole foretold chain of events into motion. Some said he couldn't because it wasn't "time."
I'm sorry, I had to include that reply on account of the fact that it's just so pukey.
Of course, the election is in November, so he doesn't have a whole lot of time left to give these people what they want. I mean, one would have to imagine these military tribunals and public executions would take quite a bit of time. Is he going to have time for that while he's campaigning? When would he golf?
Others claimed that when he said "Absolutely, I did congratulate her" that was code for "Absolutely, QAnon is real."
A personal favorite is this very important clue from one of the replies to that tweet, which apparently means ... something: "He moved his left shoulder a bit. Usually he does not."
Ah yes, the famous left-shoulder moving signal that we all know so well.
Given the fact that the QAnon conspiracy is increasingly becoming a factor in many upcoming elections, it's unlikely that this is going to be the last time Trump gets asked about it. it will be fascinating to see just how far those goal posts are capable of moving. (I'd say "to the moon!" but there are a lot of flat earthers up in that joint and they don't believe the moon is real.)
[Whitehouse.gov]
THE YEAR IN NUMBER: 2006
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/2006.html
Events 2006
World- Twelve coal miners die in the Sago Mine Disaster near Buckhannon, West Virginia in the United States.
- A stampede during the Stoning of the devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills 362 Muslim pilgrims.
- Several European newspapers reprint controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, sparking outrage and rioting in the following weeks
United States
- Google purchases YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock.
Internet giant Google bought the popular video-sharing website YouTube during October of 2006. Google bought the website for $1.65 billion through a stock purchase which was approved during the following month. At the time of the deal YouTube had about 65 employees and had become one of the fastest growing and most popular websites on the internet despite having only been established in the Spring of 2005.
United States
- NASA launches the New Horizons probe.
More Information for New Horizons.
NASA launches the New Horizons space probe mission to Pluto during January of 2006. The New Horizons probe was launched successfully from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission made a visit to Jupiter in 2007 while traveling towards Pluto where it gathered some information about Jupiter and its moons before receiving a gravity assist from the large planet and resuming its journey. The probe made it to Pluto during July of 2015 when it became the first mission to explore the dwarf planet and its moons, as well as taking some of the first high resolution images of Pluto. The probe then adjusted its course towards the “Kuiper belt object” which the New Horizons mission is expected to reach, research, and explore by 2019.
NASA launches the New Horizons space probe mission to Pluto during January of 2006. The New Horizons probe was launched successfully from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission made a visit to Jupiter in 2007 while traveling towards Pluto where it gathered some information about Jupiter and its moons before receiving a gravity assist from the large planet and resuming its journey. The probe made it to Pluto during July of 2015 when it became the first mission to explore the dwarf planet and its moons, as well as taking some of the first high resolution images of Pluto. The probe then adjusted its course towards the “Kuiper belt object” which the New Horizons mission is expected to reach, research, and explore by 2019.
Apparently, I went to New York in 2006.
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| MOMA |
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| Me and Ginger at MOMA March 4 2006 |
And my Mom turned 70 years old.
I went to a Halloween party!
And as usual, I took my vacation in Traverse City at the Neahtawanta. I began to experience severe plantar fascitis, which I later identified as GOUT, also.
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| arriving, getting ready to unpack |
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| plantar fascitis, which later is identified as gout (also) |
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| my portable library and music player |
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| my room - many comforts of home |
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| My writing spot, that's my computer |
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| my view while writing |
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| Mary Sabin |
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| Bob showing something to Kim |
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| Mary Sabin |
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| Bob and Sally and others at a BBQ picnic |
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| Me at dinner at the Boathouse at Bower's Harbor |
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| Add caption |
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| sunset at the Boathouse restaurant at Bower's Harbor |
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| Me and Sally Van Vleck |
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| Me and Bob Russell |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2008.15 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1870 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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