A Sense of Doubt blog post #2188 - "Consequences are unpitying" ... Weekly Hodge Podge for 2102.13
"Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before — consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves."
— from ADAM BEDE (1859) - George Eliot
THEM.
They are the enemy within. For them, they may not face consequences via impeachment. But the deeds carry the terrible consequences. What goes around comes around. Karma is a bitch. And it will find you.
We must remember the 43 senators who do not understand their oath of office, who do not understand the words in the constitution, who do not understand history. Or rather, the senators who understand these things well but claim the opposite because they think it secures their power and the power of their party, the doomed republican party.
They are a national embarrassment.
I don't even have to share a news item.
57 guilty.
43 not guilty.
One would think this ratio would mean CONVICTED, but it needed to be 67-33, two-thirds.
It's shameful.
THEM.
This is a short hodge podge this week.
Partly due to loss of time to take care of this sweetie.
Somebody just spent 11 hours at the animal hospital and is a little stoned. Tail cellulitis. Poor sweetie... 
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| The Impeachment Managers, led by United States Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md) walk through the Capitol Rotunda to begin the impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, February 9, 2021. Rod Lamkey - Cnp/CNP via ZUMA |
In His Closing Argument, Raskin Posed Five Questions for Trump’s Lawyers
Former President Donald Trump refused to testify during his Senate impeachment trial. So in closing the prosecution’s case on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md), the lead House manager, listed the questions he would have asked Trump. He urged Trump’s lawyers to respond to them when they present their defense of Trump, which will begin on Friday.
- Why did President Trump not tell his supporters to stop the attack on the Capitol as soon as he learned of it?
- Why did President Trump do nothing to stop the attack for at least two hours after the attack began?
- As our constitutional commander-in-chief, why did he do nothing to send help to our overwhelmed and besieged law enforcement officers for at least two hours…after the attack began?
- Why did President Trump—not at any point that day—condemn the violent insurrection and the insurrectionists?
- If a president incited a violent insurrection against our government, would that be a high crime and misdemeanor? Can we all agree at least on that?
As Raskin finished, he quoted Thomas Paine and told the senators, “We need to exercise our common sense about what happened.”
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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Dallas Mavericks have stopped playing national anthem before home games at owner Mark Cuban's direction
The Dallas Mavericks have stopped playing the national anthem before home games at the direction of owner Mark Cuban, he confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday.
The Mavericks do not plan to resume the tradition to play the national anthem before games in the future.
Cuban, who declined further comment, made the decision after consulting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. The Mavericks did not announce the change in policy, but the national anthem has not been played before any of their 13 preseason and regular-season games at the American Airlines Center this season.
No players, coaches or staffers from other teams have mentioned the change, according to a team source.
The NBA's rulebook requires players to stand during the national anthem, but Silver has declined to enforce that rule, particularly as kneeling during the anthem became a popular way to protest social injustice in recent years. The vast majority of NBA players and many coaches kneeled during the national anthem during the NBA's restart last summer in Orlando, Florida, when the league incorporated messaging supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and other social justice causes in the court design and other ways.
"I recognize that this is a very emotional issue on both sides of the equation in America right now, and I think it calls for real engagement rather than rule enforcement," Silver said during a news conference in December.
In a June interview on ESPN's Outside the Lines, Cuban expressed support for players kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest.
"If they were taking a knee and they were being respectful, I'd be proud of them. Hopefully I'd join them," Cuban said.
Cuban added then that he hoped the league would "allow players to do what's in their heart."
"Whether it's holding their arm up in the air, whether it's taking a knee, whatever it is, I don't think this is an issue of respect or disrespect to the flag or to the anthem or to our country," Cuban said. "I think this is more a reflection of our players' commitment to this country and the fact that it's so important to them that they're willing to say what's in their heart and do what they think is right.
"I'll defer to [Silver] on any final judgments and [players' union executive director] Michele Roberts. But the reality is, my hope is we'll let the players do exactly what they think is the right thing to do."
In 2017, Cuban voiced a different opinion after then-President Donald Trump criticized NFL players who were kneeling during the anthem to protest social injustice and police brutality.
"This is America, and I'm proud of people who speak out civilly. That's who we are as a country," Cuban said at the time. "I'll be standing there with my hand over my heart. I think the players will be [standing]. I expect them to be."
Three years later, as the Black Lives Matter movement continued to grow, Cuban explained what changed his mindset.
"Because I think we've learned a lot since 2017," he told OTL in June. "I think we've evolved as a country. And this is really a unique point in time where we can grow as a society, we can grow as a country and become far more inclusive and become far more aware of the challenges that minority communities go through.
"So I'll stand in unison with our players, whatever they choose to do. But again, when our players in the NBA do what's in their heart, when they do what they feel represents who they are and look to move this country forward when it comes to race relationships, I think that's a beautiful thing and I'll be proud of them."
Biden DOJ Halts Trump Admin Lawsuit Against California Net Neutrality Rules (arstechnica.com)
The case began when Trump's DOJ sued California in September 2018 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California, trying to block a state net neutrality law similar to the US net neutrality law repealed by the Ajit Pai-led FCC. Though Pai's FCC lost an attempt to impose a blanket, nationwide preemption of any state net neutrality law, the US government's lawsuit against the California law was moving forward in the final months of the Trump administration.
The Biden DOJ's voluntary dismissal of the case puts an end to that. "I am pleased that the Department of Justice has withdrawn this lawsuit," FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said today. "When the FCC, over my objection, rolled back its net neutrality policies, states like California sought to fill the void with their own laws. By taking this step, Washington is listening to the American people, who overwhelmingly support an open Internet, and is charting a course to once again make net neutrality the law of the land."The report notes that California still has to defend its net neutrality rules against a separate lawsuit filed by the major broadband-industry lobby groups. "The industry groups representing all the biggest ISPs and many smaller ones filed an amended complaint against California in August 2020, claiming the net neutrality law is 'unconstitutional state regulation,'" reports Ars.
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| Trump’s to blame for the U.S. response to the coronavirus, but not for the decline in American health outcomes. Win McNamee/Getty Images |
Lancet Study Finds 40 Percent of U.S. Covid-19 Deaths Could Have Been Avoided
FEB 11, 20218:23 AM
The British medical journal the Lancet, on Wednesday, published a damning assessment of Donald Trump’s presidency and its impact on Americans’ health, concluding that 40 percent of the nearly 500,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. over the last year were avoidable. The journal came to the conclusion by comparing the U.S. health outcomes on the coronavirus—the country leads the world in Covid deaths and confirmed cases with more than 27 million—with the weighted average of other G7 nations. So it’s not a wildly abstract conclusion to draw: the U.S. could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if it had just performed similarly to its economic peers.
The report assailed Trump for his response to the pandemic, but emphasized that the disastrous response to the virus’s spread was the result of years of destructive public policy decisions on health that extended well beyond the Trump years. From the Lancet:
Many of the cases and deaths were avoidable. Instead of galvanizing the U.S. populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation. His refusal to develop a national strategy worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests. President Trump politicized mask-wearing and school reopenings and convened indoor events attended by thousands, where masks were discouraged and physical distancing was impossible.
The result, the Lancet notes, is more than 450,000 deaths where “about 40 percent of which could have been averted had the U.S. death rate mirrored the weighted average of the other G7 nations.” But the trajectory of the U.S. falling behind G7 nations in life expectancy is nothing new, and the gap has grown over the past decade even before the coronavirus exacerbated existing deficiencies in the U.S. health system. The number of excess deaths in the U.S. when compared to like-countries in the G7 already stood at more than 450,000 in 2018 alone—a number that has been climbing for decades. Most of those unnecessary deaths in the U.S. are in people under the age 65, such that, “if U.S. death rates were equivalent to those of other G7 nations, two of five deaths before age 65 years would have been averted,” the Lancet notes. “To put this number in context, the number of missing Americans each year is more than the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA in all of 2020.”
Galaxy-Size Gravitational-Wave Detector Hints At Exotic Physics (scientificamerican.com)
[...]
The NANOGrav collaboration still needs to confirm that it is in fact seeing gravitational waves. And the shape of those gravitational waves' spectrum has yet to be traced out and found to conform to the cosmic string interpretation, each of which is likely to take years. Meanwhile, another contingent of the physics community has suggested that the signal could originate from entities known as primordial black holes. Unlike regular black holes, which are born when gigantic stars die, these would form in the early universe, when matter and energy were nonuniformly scattered through the cosmos as a consequence of processes that occurred at the end of inflation. Certain overdense areas could collapse under their own weight, generating black holes in a variety of sizes. Observations from LIGO and Virgo that could indicate mergers between primordial black holes have already planted the idea in many researchers' minds that these strange objects are more than speculative fictions. Certain theorists like them because, as entities that give off no light, they could account for some or even all of the dark matter in the universe.
Along with two co-authors, Riotto has written a third paper appearing in PRL showing how the NANOGrav signal could be accounted for by a multitude of black holes the size of asteroids being created shortly after the big bang, producing a gravitational wave relic that would travel to us in the modern day. According to the researchers' model, these miniature primordial black holes could comprise up to 100 percent of the dark matter in the universe. [...] Nevertheless, the burst of theoretical activity shows how seriously physicists are taking these results. NANOGrav researchers have another two and a half years of pulsar data they are combing through, which could help distinguish whether some or a combination of all these explanations might be viable.
New Quantum Receiver the First To Detect Entire Radio Frequency Spectrum (phys.org)
The Rydberg spectrum analyzer has the potential to surpass fundamental limitations of traditional electronics in sensitivity, bandwidth and frequency range. Because of this, the lab's Rydberg spectrum analyzer and other quantum sensors have the potential to unlock a new frontier of Army sensors for spectrum awareness, electronic warfare, sensing and communications -- part of the Army's modernization strategy. The peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Applied published the researchers' findings, Waveguide-coupled Rydberg spectrum analyzer from 0 to 20 GigaHerz, co-authored by Army researchers Drs. David Meyer, Paul Kunz, and Kevin Cox.
Scientists Develop Transparent Wood That Is Stronger, Lighter Than Glass (www.cbc.ca)
Early attempts to make transparent wood involved removing the lignin, but this involved hazardous chemicals, high temperatures and a lot of time, making the product expensive and somewhat brittle. The new technique is so cheap and easy it could literally be done in a backyard. Starting with planks of wood a metre long and one millimetre thick, the scientists simply brushed on a solution of hydrogen peroxide using an ordinary paint brush. When left in the sun, or under a UV lamp for an hour or so, the peroxide bleached out the brown chromophores but left the lignin intact, so the wood turned white.
Next, they infused the wood with a tough transparent epoxy designed for marine use, which filled in the spaces and pores in the wood and then hardened. This made the white wood transparent. You can see a similar effect by taking that same piece of paper towel, dip half of it in water and place it on a patterned surface. The white paper towel will become translucent with light passing through the water and cellulose fibres without being scattered by refraction. The epoxy in the wood does an even better job, allowing 90 per cent of visible light to pass through. The result is a long piece of what looks like glass, with the strength and flexibility of wood.The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.
This suggests that the gas was being produced by some other process; luckily, we have similar processes here on Earth that can help us understand what it could be. It's a several-step process that requires a few key ingredients. First, you need sodium chloride (that's regular salt), left over from evaporative processes. [...] Then there's the Martian polar ice caps which, when warmed during the summer, sublimate. When the resulting water vapor mingles with the salt, the resulting reaction releases chlorine, which then reacts further to form hydrogen chloride.The research has been published in the journal Science Advances.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2102.13 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2052 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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