A Sense of Doubt blog post #2482 - Let's Go Brandon Stupidity - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2112.04
These obnoxious elements of the Republican party are out of control. How much more hate-filled and threatening do these people have to get before someone in the party, supposedly the part of Lincoln, starts the steps to remove them from office. Last week Arizona representative Paul Gosar threatens the life of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and he just is censured by the party, not prosecuted for assault.
How people like Gosar, Boebert, and let's not forget Marjorie Taylor Greene or Madison Cawthorn got elected to NATIONAL office is baffling to me.
Shameful, deeply offensive & dangerous. Yet another blatant display of Islamophobia targeting @IlhanMN These comments are personally hurtful, legitimately endanger her & the broader Muslim community. Rhetoric like this must be denounced & anyone spewing it held to account. https://t.co/5m3Qykn2WM
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) November 26, 2021
There's been good news. All three defendants were found guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Finally, some justice. Many of us can breathe more freely and easily now because of that verdict. And I am saying breathe easily on purpose because of "I can't breathe."
@StopTheSteal started being used regularly for Election 2020 (it actually had been coined previously) with this tweet:
A poll watcher in Philly was just wrongfully prevented from entering the polling place#StopTheSteal pic.twitter.com/iJTFtRk0Id
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 3, 2020
The RNC’s election integrity director Josh Findlay recently claimed the party would be stepping up its official poll-watching efforts in 2022. Even if this promise proves to be more “puffery,” as long as there are large numbers of Republican voters who believe election fraud is widespread, there will likely be some who will do their own, unofficial poll watching. And if nothing else changes, there will also be a network of activists ready to transform their efforts into viral narratives on social media. Only five of the top 21 “repeat spreaders” of 2020 election misinformation identified by the Center for an Informed Public have been kicked off Twitter. The other 16—including Posobiec, Trump Jr., and Roman—remain active and have millions more followers than they did last November.
The Center for an Informed Public contributed to a recent report that pointed out that researchers and journalists have repeatedly found that a small number of influential “superspreaders” drive the spread of misinformation on social media. They suggested a solution could be for social media platforms to hold influential accounts to a higher standard, instead of doing the opposite. “It’s an incredibly obvious solution that they don’t want to do,” says Center for an Informed Public graduate researcher Andrew Beers, “for I think very obvious political reasons.”
Richard Spencer and Other White Nationalists Found Liable for the Deadly Charlottesville Rally
They’ll have to pay more than $25 million in damages to the nine plaintiffs.
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2021/11/richard-spencer-white-nationalist-charlottesville-rally-heather-heyer-virginia/
A jury found Richard Spencer and other white nationalists who organized the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, liable for injuries to counter-protesters—and responsible for more than $25 million in damages.
At the 2017 rally, a man deliberately drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens others. The jury’s decision Tuesday afternoon found that the organizers of the far-right rally, in addition to the driver of the car, bear responsibility for the counter-protesters’ injuries.
“The evidence was overwhelming that leaders of the white supremacist movement from all around the country planned for months to bring violence and intimidation to the streets of Charlottesville,” Roberta A. Kaplan and Karen L. Dunn, co-lead counsels for the nine plaintiffs, said in a statement, “and that our brave clients, among many others, were injured when they dared to stand up for their values.”
And they are just modeling the MISOGYNY. Marjorie Taylor Greene (whose name I wish was not the same as my mother's, "Marjorie") is making a career out of being as nasty and classless as she can possibly be. Currently, she is arguing on social media with fellow GOP representative Nancy Mace. The garbage these people spew (mostly MTG here) is gross and frequently unconscionable. MTG felt the need to defend the bigotry and hatefulness of Lauren Boebert, who thinks it's a great comedy schtick to spew her hate toward Muslims, like rep. Ilhan Omar, and her homophobic hate toward Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. There should no place for this garbage people in Congress. They give garbage a bad name. We need a better term for their brand of hate and vileness so as not to defame garbage that never hurt anybody.
TYPICALLY, I STAY AWAY from the subject of abortion. For one thing, I have personal reasons for this to be a painful subject. For another, I find that people on both sides are intractable and will not listen to reasons. For a third, I find the language nauseating. It's an issue of choice and not of life. So Pro-Life defaults to "Anti-Life" for those who oppose the "Pro-Life" position, but none of these people are actually "Anti-Life." I can explain more, but I am sure you know the arguments. And if you don't, read this about CHOICE. And lastly, and most importantly, I do not have a uterus and neither does any other man, so why do men feel the need to talk about what should happen with women's uteruses and how they may face a decisions that men will never face? ALSO, many men who are vociferous about being Anti-Choice, secretly, paid for someone to have an abortion in their past.
But Omar’s allies feel that Democrats should still seek a more severe punishment, such as removal from her congressional committees. “That language, that behavior can’t be normalized,” Bowman told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. “It literally leads to an increase in death threats for Congresswoman Omar. People are in jail right now as a result of credible death threats.” On Thursday afternoon, 38 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued a statement in which they slam Boebert for “repeatedly weaponiz[ing] dangerous, anti-Muslim bigotry.” Anything short of strenuous disciplinary action, their statement said, “creates a dangerous work environment and furthers a climate of toxicity and intolerance.”
Democratic leadership has yet to publicly respond to that letter. Whatever action they ultimately take competes with a long to-do list Democrats have vowed to complete before year’s end—including raising the debt ceiling, funding the government, and passing Biden’s domestic agenda. But, as Omar said during her press conference on Monday, the action lawmakers take against Boebert could be a matter of life and death. As she noted, “We cannot pretend that this hate speech from leading politicians does not have real consequence.”
I didn't know what "Let's Go Brandon" was "code" for when I heard people talking about it in a supermarket. Some old white dude had it on his shirt and some old white woman was praising him, and he reacted by telling her about their demonstrations on Sundays in Ridgefield, which I know are the Pro-Trump and Anti-Vax whack jobs on the highway overpass with their signs that read "Get the Jab and Die" or "Trump won in 2020."
I hate euphemisms as much as "clever" secret code.
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| https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/11/17/25571694/texas-woman-arrested-after-fuck-trump-decal-debacle |
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| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vulgar-signs-chants/2021/10/22/6071836e-3122-11ec-a880-a9d8c009a0b1_story.html |
Sure, we can blow it off. But it's yet another example of BAD-AS-THEY-WANNA-BE "republicans," dedicated to "what if we didn't", which I wrote about via sharing a John Scalzi post post-Insurrection
It's not really a new thing to insult the president. I have engaged in name-calling even before Trump, but then Trump pushed my outrage to new levels. The term OK actually comes from an anti-presidential barb.
Some want to consider whether "Let's Go Brandon" qualifies as HATE SPEECH. Let's not go there. The right has already tried to diminish decency, compassion, and kindness as "political correctness," and so let's not play their Reindeer Games, Rudolph!
How about Fuck Trump and Fuck Boebert, though not in a sexual way.
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2021/11/20/Let-s-go-Brandon-isn-t-clever-it-s-vulgar/stories/202111200013
‘Let’s
go Brandon’ isn’t clever, it’s vulgar
Think of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which then-candidate Donald Trump bragged about grabbing a woman by her genitals and when he boasted about the size of his own genitals when taunted by an equally adolescent U.S. senator trying to score points during a primary debate. It’s hard to believe now but, in a different time, such disgraceful talk would have been a disqualifier for the presidency.
While Mr. Trump cannot be blamed for originating the descent into the coarseness of our national dialogue, he did encourage it.
The latest case of rampant vulgarity started this fall. Fans at a NASCAR race began chanting “[expletive] Joe Biden,” but an announcer misheard the chant and reported that the crowd said “Let’s Go Brandon,” to support driver Brandon Brown.
The misunderstanding went viral and became a way for conservatives who used to pride themselves on self-discipline and moral consistency to slip in expletives and rude sentiments in a way that was perceived by fellow Trump supporters as funny and subversive. Members of the U.S. Senate and House used “Let’s Go Brandon” on social media and even in speeches on the floor of Congress. An airline pilot said it over his plane’s intercom system and now faces punishment. The phrase adorns wedding cakes and pizzas across America.
Last week, “Let’s Go Brandon” was chanted in the sanctuary of the Texas church of Trump supporter John Hagee. It was not a regular Sunday worship, but the sanctuary was full of QAnon supporters protesting President Biden, mask mandates and vaccines. “Let’s Go Brandon” united the sanctuary with one bitter chant.
It isn’t just supporters of Mr. Biden who consider the caustic immaturity pathetic; those who disagree with Mr. Biden on many issues will consider the chant off-putting.
We’re long past the point of expecting the return of civility to America. The contagion of offensive speech is already out there and isn’t going anywhere soon. The need for the House to censure of Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar for spreading a cartoon video depicting the killing of a Democratic House member shows how far gone many people already are.
“Let’s Go Brandon” isn’t shocking, surprising or clever. It reveals a moral bankruptcy of those who chant it even in church.
And Brandon McGinley, a Post-Gazette editorial writer who did not author this piece, would like his good name to be restored.
First Published November 20, 2021, 2:45am
And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
BLINDED WITH SCIENCE
https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/11/26/1253256/einstein-foundation-to-present-the-inaugural-award-for-promoting-quality-in-research
Einstein Foundation To Present the Inaugural Award for Promoting Quality in Research (idw-online.de)
A comet becomes active when light from the Sun heats its icy surface, turning ice to vapor and releasing trapped dust and grit. The resulting haze, called a coma, can be useful for astronomers in working out exactly what a particular comet is made out of. In the case of BB, it's still too far out for water to sublimate. Based on studies of comets at similar distances, it's likely that the emerging fog is driven instead by a slow release of carbon monoxide. Only one active comet has previously been directly observed at a greater distance from the Sun, and it was much smaller than BB."These observations are pushing the distances for active comets dramatically farther than we have previously known," says astronomer Tony Farnham, from the University of Maryland (UMD). "We make the assumption that comet BB was probably active even farther out, but we just didn't see it before this. What we don't know yet is if there's some cut-off point where we can start to see these things in cold storage before they become active."
The research has been published in the Planetary Science Journal.
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| https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1972-comic.html |
Saving History With Sandbags: Climate Change Threatens the Smithsonian (nytimes.com)
It gurgles up through the floor in the basement. It finds the gaps between ground-level windows, puddling around exhibits. It sneaks into the ductwork, then meanders the building and drips onto display cases. It creeps through the ceiling in locked collection rooms, thief-like, and pools on the floor. Staff have been experimenting with defenses: Candy-red flood barriers lined up outside windows. Sensors that resemble electronic mouse traps, deployed throughout the building, that trigger alarms when wet. Plastic bins on wheels, filled with a version of cat litter, to be rushed back and forth to soak up the water. So far, the museum's holdings have escaped damage. But "We're kind of in trial and error," said Ryan Doyle, a facilities manager at the Smithsonian. "It's about managing water." An assessment of the Smithsonian's vulnerabilities, released last month, reveals the scale of the challenge: Not only are artifacts stored in basements in danger, but floods could knock out electrical and ventilation systems in the basements that keep the humidity at the right level to protect priceless art, textiles, documents and specimens on display. Of all its facilities, the Smithsonian ranks American History as the most vulnerable, followed by its next door neighbor, the National Museum of Natural History.
Notifications Are Driving Us Crazy. (wsj.com)
It doesn't make for great circumstances for getting work done, but there are ways individuals, managers and organizations can contend with the onslaught. Dr. Mark's research finds people switch screens an average of 566 times a day. Half the time we're interrupted; the other half we pull ourselves away. Breaks -- even mindless ones like scrolling Facebook -- can be positive, replenishing our cognitive resources, Dr. Mark says. But when something external diverts our focus, it takes us an average of 25 minutes and 26 seconds to get back to our original task, she has found. (Folks often switch to different projects in between.) And it stresses us out. Research using heart monitors shows that the interval between people's heart beats becomes more regular when they're interrupted, a sign they're in fight-or-flight mode. The onus is on teams and organizations to create new norms, Dr. Mark says. If individuals just up and turn off their notifications they'll likely be penalized for missing information. Instead, managers should create quiet hours where people aren't expected to respond. "It's a matter of relearning how to work," she says.
CNN reports on researcher Michael Worobey, "who specializes in tracing the genetic evolution of viruses," who has now found "considerable evidence that the virus arose in an animal, and did not start circulating until the end of 2019." One case especi...
Can We Fight Carbon Emissions With Roundabout Intersections?
The U.S. city of Carmel, Indiana (population: 102,000) has 140 roundabouts, "with over a dozen still to come," reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.) "No American city has more. The main reason is safety; compared with regular intersections, ro...
A German State is Switching Its 25,000 Computers From Windows to Linux
The north-German state of Schleswig-Holstein plans to switch to open source software..." reports Mike Saunders from LibreOffice.
"By the end of 2026, Microsoft Office is to be replaced by LibreOffice on all 25,000 computers used by civil servan...
Ask Slashdot: Where Are All the Jobs Preventing Zero-Day Exploits?
An anonymous reader writes: Given the widespread understanding that sophisticated hackers are regularly using zero-day vulnerabilities to break into high-value systems, why is it that when I search for "zero day" on Australia's most popular job search e...
Why Colleges are Giving Up on Remote Education
The president emeritus of the Great Lakes College Association writes that "nearly all colleges have re-adopted in-person education this fall, in spite of delta variant risks...
"As it turns out, student enthusiasm for remote learning is mixed at ...
Cryptographers Aren't Happy With How You're Using the Word 'Crypto'
Cryptographers are upset that "crypto" sometimes now refers to cryptocurrency, reports the Guardian: This lexical shift has weighed heavily on cryptographers, who, over the past few years, have repeated the rallying cry "Crypto means cryptography" on s...
El Salvador Plans 'Bitcoin City' Powered by a Volcano, Financed by Bitcoin Bonds
"In a rock concert-like atmosphere, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced that his government will build an oceanside 'Bitcoin City' at the base of a volcano..." reports the Associated Press.
"A bond offering would happen in 2022 entirely ...
Are Zebras White With Black Stripes Or Black With White Stripes?
Zebra stripes are unique to each individual zebra, reports LiveScience, in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. And even if you look at the three different zebra species, their skin is always the same color: black (accor...
South Africa Raises Alarm Over New Coronavirus Variant (wsj.com)
Time for some truth about the coronavirus Covid-19 that the unvaccinated do not want to face.
This is down from being 29 times more likely to be hospitalized the month before, in August 2021.
The 11 times more likely to die rate in September of 2021 has risen to 20 times more likely in November of 2021.
In Texas:
Futurama - Omnicron
These republicans nimrods will just say anything that plays well with the anti-science base of ever greater swelling stupidity.
Natural immunity is the result of having contracted COVID-19, and — we can't believe we have to say this — that's not desirable because of all the potential coughing and death. According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is in Nebraska not some liberal nightmare state, the COVID-19 vaccines create "more effective and longer-lasting immunity than natural immunity from infection."
They even have bullet points:
- More than a third of COVID-19 infections result in zero protective antibodies
- Natural immunity fades faster than vaccine immunity
- Natural immunity alone is less than half as effective than natural immunity plus vaccination
Even if you've had COVID-19 already, you should still get vaccinated. That's how much better the vaccine is, compared to the Darwin's special.
 (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) For many ICU survivors and their families, life is never the samePhysical, mental and cognitive problems can last years after covid-19 or other severe illness is conquered. |
A record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September as labor market tumult continued |
PANDEMIC
THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT
If you prefer your data in a visual format, here's the current map from COVID Exit Strategy, using data from the CDC and the COVID Tracking Project.
I want to add this link to the weekly report. It's important to remember:
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1983 - Is Coronavirus more contagious and more deadly than the flu? YES.
ALSO... 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.
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
Deaths:
Recovered:
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2112.04 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2346 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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