A Sense of Doubt blog post #1842 - COVID-19 - News and Perspectives

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1842 - COVID-19 - News and Perspectives

Just a lot of shares here with news and reports on CoronaVirus.

We're all a bit worried, especially since Washington state is the hot zone with the highest number of cases by state in U.S.

Here's some news and reports.




https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/03/06/1334200/coronavirus-confirmed-cases-worldwide-climb-to-over-100000

Coronavirus Confirmed Cases Worldwide Climb To Over 100,000 (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday March 06, 2020 @09:00AM from the where-things-stand dept.

The number of coronavirus cases has reached 100,276, with 55,694 recovered and 3,404 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. From a report:The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said it looked like the UK would face substantial disruption due to the coronavirus. He said: "It looks like there will a substantial period of disruption where we have to deal with this outbreak." When asked what help would be given to businesses struggling due to the outbreak, Johnson said next week's budget presented "a big opportunity" for the country. He added: "You will be seeing in the budget next week all sorts of ways in which we want to be using this moment, the UK coming out of the European Union. All the opportunities that we have -- but also dealing with this particular challenge, coronavirus, and set in the general low growth the world is seeing -- to make some fantastic investments in the long term."

NEXT FROM - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/03/covid-19.html

COVID-19

By Charlie Stross

Not much to say here: by now you've all heard of Coronavirus Disease 2019, and it's probable that there are cases in your country. (Another 13 cases just got added to the UK score this morning.)

Remember: Coronaviruses have a lipid membrane, which is vulnerable to disruption by detergents (including soap and water). It can persist for up to 24 hours on some surfaces (especially polished metal). Wash your hands! You're probably safe from droplet inhalation unless an infected person coughs in your face—droplets settle fast.

The headline mortality rate for COVID-19, 2%, is comparable to the 1918-20 Spanish Flu (an order of magnitude higher than a regular winter flu). However, it rises to around 15% in over-70s. This is therefore going to cause a crisis in the nursing home sector, where homes will either have to run on a skeleton staff by sending home sick care workers, or risk killing their residents in large numbers. (This is why we need statutory sick pay!) It has the potential for major demographic, political, and age/wealth redistribution as side-effects. Also for exposing butt-headed political moves like Boris Johnson demanding the UK leaves the EU's pandemic response early warning system (apparently viruses will give the UK a free pass because Brexit), or Iranian clergy in the holy city of Qom staying open to pilgrims because their shrines are places of healing. And I'm fairly certain that as soon as there's a vaccine, the Anti-Vaxxers will crawl out of the woodwork.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/03/02/035218/americas-coronavirus-testing-lags-far-behind-south-korea-and-china

America's Coronavirus Testing Lags Far Behind South Korea and China (axios.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday March 01, 2020 @10:09PM from the response-time dept.

The news site Axios (founded by former Politico staffers) reports on an issue discovered at an Atlanta lab for America's Centers for Disease Control that was manufacturing "relatively small amounts" of coronavirus testing kits for laboratories around the country. Sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta tell them that manufacturing has now been moved to another lab.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn confirmed to the site that there had been problems with "certain test components." The Commissioner also said the problems had been resolved and "were due to a manufacturing issue," and said the FDA has confidence in the current manufacturing of the tests they're distributing, which "have passed extensive quality control procedures and will provide the high-level of diagnostic accuracy we need..."

Axios adds that "It was not immediately clear if or how possible contamination in the Atlanta lab played a role in delays or problems" that America's been experiencing with its coronavirus testing:The U.S. government had admitted to problems with its diagnostic tests -- which have put the U.S. well behind China and South Korea in doing large-scale testing of the American public for the coronavirus... As of Friday, South Korea had tested 65,000 people for the coronavirus; the U.S. had tested only 459, per Science Magazine. China can reportedly conduct up to 1.6 million tests a week. Although the World Health Organization has sent testing kits to 57 other countries, the U.S. decided to make its own.

There have also been problems with the tests themselves. On Feb. 12, the FDA announced that health labs across the country were having problems validating the CDC's diagnostic test, Science reports in an in-depth account of what went wrong with the tests.

The FDA announced yesterday that public health labs can create their own diagnostic test. Scott Becker, the CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, told Science that he expects that public health labs will be able to do 10,000 tests a day by the end of the week.

As Coronavirus Numbers Rise, C.D.C. Testing Comes Under Fire

ACLU Sues To End ICE's Rigged Algorithms That Keep Immigrants In Jail

China's Aggressive Measures Reversed the Course of Coronavirus Outbreak

WHO Estimates Coronavirus Death Rate At 3.4 Percent -- Higher Than Earlier Estimates

Fed Cuts Rates Half Point in Emergency Move Amid Spreading Virus

Coronavirus Patient Visited San Antonio Hotel, Mall After She Was 'Mistakenly Released' From Isolation, Officials Say

C.D.C. Drops Coronavirus Testing Numbers From Its Website

https://www.opb.org/news/article/coronavirus-pacific-northwest-things-to-know/

Everything You Want To Know About Coronavirus (And Other Stuff, Too)

by Erin Ross Follow OPB March 2, 2020 4:37 p.m. | Updated: March 3, 2020 11:41 a.m.

The coronavirus has made it to Oregon. The first COVID-19 case was announced Friday and by Monday a third presumptive COVID-19 case had been confirmed. Supermarkets clogged as residents scrambled to prepare, and toilet paper, canned food and frozen veggies flew off the shelves. There’s a lot of misinformation out there — some of it from official sources — so let’s set the record straight. We’ll start with the most pressing question: 

Should we be scared?

If you’re scared, that’s OK. If you’re not scared, that’s OK, too. This virus isn’t the apocalypse, but it is serious, and it’s important to be cautious and prepared. If you have children, it’s possible their school will be cancelled. Make sure you have childcare arranged if you can’t stay home. Make sure you have shelf-stable food and toiletries and basic necessities in case stores close. Buy them sooner, not later, so that stores have a chance to restock if they run out of something.

For now, treat this like you would a natural disaster. Ask your doctor for a three-month supply of any prescription medications.

Make sure your earthquake kit is stocked. Fill up your pantry, but don’t be a hoarder. And take some advice from this writer, who has lived through far too many blizzards and hurricanes: treat yourself. Get a few luxuries. You don’t want to be eating plain pasta and beans for weeks if things get really bad. Go buy some chocolate.

What can I do to avoid getting sick?

The same things you would do for the flu. Get enough sleep, drink enough water. Cough into your elbow. Avoid touching your face. Wash your hands often with soap and water. And you’re probably doing it wrong, so follow these tips: wash the front and back, between your fingers and under your nails for at least 20 seconds. Sing Happy Birthday or Mary Had A Little Lamb twice. Or try this list of 20-second-long catchy choruses.

It’s a good idea to use hand sanitizer when hand washing isn’t available. It’s not quite as effective, but it does help. If your local drugstore is out of hand sanitizer, don’t panic: you can make your own.

What about masks?

There’s no need to go crazy buying masks. Masks are great at preventing people from spreading disease, but not so good at stopping people from getting diseases. Unless you’re sick or caring for someone who is sick, washing your hands works much better. If you do get a mask, use it properly.

Who needs to worry about this virus?

Like the flu, elders, people with underlying health conditions, and people with compromised immune systems are most at risk. But there have been fatalities in younger, previously-healthy people.

Unlike the flu, the majority of cases in children seem to be more mild. There’s actually two mild coronaviruses, unrelated to this one, that are responsible for about a quarter of all common colds. They’re very common in daycare centers. Some scientists think that children might have some residual immunity because they get coronavirus-caused colds so often.

How fast is the disease spreading, and how bad is it?

It’s pretty bad. It’s not time to panic, but worries that the media is over-hyping this outbreak are unfounded.

Right now, scientists think the COVID-19 virus is more contagious than the flu. Scientists measure contagion with something called an R0, pronounced r-naught. It’s a number they can plug into models to see how diseases spread, and basically it just represents how many people one person can pass the virus on to. Estimates for COVID-19 vary widely, but current consensus is that it’s around 2 or 3, making it roughly twice as infectious as the flu. The Centers for Disease Control has said we should prepare for a pandemic.

What about the fatality rate?

Right now, the estimated fatality rate is about 2%. In Hubei province, where the coronavirus outbreak started, it’s between 2% and 4%. In other parts of China, it’s about .7% — that’s probably because hospitals in those areas were less stressed and could provide better care, since there were fewer patients. World Health Organization officials are worried that countries without good healthcare will have widespread fatalities.

Some scientists have hoped that the fatality rate of 2% will go down as previously-undiagnosed mild cases are counted. But Bruce Aylward, an expert at the World Health Organization, said in a press briefing that evidence suggests most of the mild cases in China were, in fact, counted. Others disagree.

A common piece of misinformation is that coronavirus “has a 2% fatality rate, about the same as the flu.” That statement is false, and it has been repeated by President Donald Trump and his administration officials. Scientists have criticized his comments and called his statements “dangerous.”

This year’s flu outbreak had a fatality rate of .05% in the U.S. Even if the COVID-19 fatality rate falls, it’s much more severe than the flu.

If the outbreak does get bad, what should we be worried about?

The biggest concern would be overtaxed hospitals. The death rate for coronavirus was much higher in Wuhan, and surrounding areas than it had been in other provinces. That’s because hospitals in Wuhan were so packed that they ran out of important equipment and supplies like respirators and oxygen.

Shoppers visit a Costco Wholesale in Tigard, Ore., Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, after reports of Oregon’s first case of coronavirus was announced in the nearby Oregon city of Lake Oswego on Friday. 

Gillian Flaccus/AP

There were also reports of people who needed routine but life-saving medical care being turned away. The South China Morning Post reported about patients with kidney disease, for example, who couldn’t get into the hospitals for dialysis. Same with cancer patients. So folks who need this type of care should make sure that they’ll be covered and get routine appointments taken care of now rather than later.

And, of course, treatment for severe cases is expensive and requires long stays in the hospital. At a time when 27 million Americans don’t have health insurance, that could be a huge financial hit.

SARS-CoV-2, 2019-nCoV, COVID-19, “the new coronavirus.” What on earth is this disease actually called?

COVID-19 is the name of the disease, while SARS-CoV-2 and 2019-nCoV are names for the virus. Sometimes, viruses and diseases have different names. It’s like how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS.

Where did the virus come from?

At this point, most of us have heard that the novel coronavirus was first detected in a cluster of cases around a Wuhan wet market. That’s a place where a ton of different live animals are sold and slaughtered. But pretty quickly, health officials noticed that some early cases couldn’t be linked to the wet market at all. Wuhan does appear to be the epicenter; it has more cases than anywhere else, so that’s as good of an answer as we have.

Some of the recent cases in Oregon, California and Washington couldn’t be connected to people who visited infected countries. They’re called “community acquired.” What does that tell us?

It tells us that the virus has been in the Northwest, circulating for longer than we think.

Do we know how long?

We have a good guess. The first case of the virus found in the U.S. was reported in Washington state by a person who had visited an infected area. That person’s sequence was uploaded to GenBank, and it had a very specific mutation that most of the other sequences didn’t have. One of the recent community-acquired cases in Washington was also sequenced, and that virus had the same specific mutation. If all of these cases did come from the first one, then the virus has been spreading in Washington since late January.

Why didn’t we see it until now?

Not long after the outbreak, a lot of Western countries started widespread screening for the virus and testing basically anyone who came into a hospital with respiratory symptoms. But we haven’t been doing that in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control wanted to prioritize people who had contact with those who were confirmed to be infected.

And then, the initial round of test kits sent out by the CDC were faulty. We’ve only just recently started getting reliable tests for the virus. And now the CDC has changed its testing guidelines and given states and hospitals authority to conduct their own tests.

That means we’ll probably see a bit of an uptick in cases in the next few days as patients that hospitals had been monitoring and suspected of having the virus can now be tested and confirmed.  In the meantime, all those undetected mild cases will keep on spreading coronavirus. As of Sunday, a disease modeler thinks there are between 300 and 500 cases in Washington, but maybe as many as 1,500. At that time there were only a handful of confirmed cases.

What do we know about the virus?

We know it’s a coronavirus, which means it’s in the same family as SARS and MERS - Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. We know it’s nowhere near as deadly as those viruses, but way more contagious. There are also two other coronaviruses that circulate the globe. Those viruses aren’t a big deal, and cause roughly a quarter of all common colds.

Beyond that, there are a lot of theories and predictions, but they’re all based on what we know about other respiratory viruses.

We don’t know how the COVID-19 virus spreads, but we have a good guess. Measles, for example, spreads in the air — you can get measles just from being in the room with someone else with measles. The other coronaviruses don’t spread this way, they spread in droplets of water we release when we cough or sneeze, just like colds and the flu. Scientists think that if the COVID-19 does spread in the air, we’d be seeing a lot more cases. So that’s good news.

We don’t know how long the virus can survive on surfaces, which is why they temporarily closed the school in Lake Oswego, where Oregon’s first confirmed coronavirus patient worked. That’s also why in addition to washing hands, you should keep your house extra-clean and sterilize surfaces.

Is it possible the virus was just circulating for a long time, and no one noticed it?

We actually have a pretty good idea of when the virus started circulating, even if we don’t know precisely where. When scientists are investigating outbreaks like this, it sort of becomes a forensic puzzle, like a crime case.

First, some background:

There are two types of genes, RNA and DNA. We have both in us right now, and some viruses have one or the other or both. The details aren’t important, but you should know that RNA viruses (like the flu, the common cold or rhinovirus) are way more likely to mutate. RNA is not very stable. That’s part of why RNA viruses like the flu are so good at jumping between species. Remember bird flu and swine flu? They’re both RNA viruses. Coronavirus is an RNA virus.

People wearing masks commute in a train in Tokyo, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The Japanese government has indicated it sees the next couple of weeks as crucial to containing the spread of COVID-19, which began in China late last year.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Each time a virus is replicated, it copies that genetic material. And no copy is ever perfect, so there are mutations. There’s a massive, free, publicly-available online database of genetic sequences called GenBank. It’s run by the National Library of Medicine. Scientists all over the world have been sequencing the virus’ genes and uploading them to GenBank. By looking at those genetic sequences from a bunch of different coronavirus samples we can figure out how long the virus has been around by seeing how similar or different their genes are. We do this same thing all the time in evolution — when scientists say they think humans and chimpanzees branched off from each other about 6 to 8 million years ago, they’re calculating that using a genetic clock like this one.

Right now scientists think this virus first started circulating in humans sometime in November. But the virus wasn’t officially reported in China until Dec. 31. 

What does the future of the outbreak look like?

Most scientists are looking to the flu for some idea of how the new coronavirus might spread. When a new type of flu breaks out, like swine flu, it usually causes a big spike in cases at first because no one is immune to it. But eventually, a lot of people become immune. The viruses cycle between the northern and southern hemisphere, spreading where it’s coldest and vanishing in the summer.

So will it just become more mild and cycle seasonally, like the flu and the two other common coronaviruses?

It’s a definite possibility, but honestly we have no clue. We don’t know, for example, if having had the virus a previous year will make us less likely to get it the next year. We also don’t really know how it’ll survive in heat. But a lot of people suspect that might happen — the good news is that if it does start cycling seasonally, a lot of people will get infected at first, but “herd immunity” might kick in and make later outbreaks much smaller.

We can also look at the flu again. Some years, the strains of flu circulating are more deadly than other years. And again, we’ve never seen this virus before — so there’s still a lot up in the air.

Are there any risks of drug shortages?

So far, things aren’t too bad. But they could get worse. Pharmaceutical production is a global trade, and that has people worried. Roughly 80% of all pharmaceutical ingredients are made in China. The U.S. already has shortages of one drug — the Food and Drug Administration won’t say which one — because key ingredients aren’t making it here from China. Major pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Pfizer have released statements saying that they expect more shortages to come. There are concerns that we might run low on antibiotics that help treat secondary infections, like bacterial pneumonia caused by the coronavirus.

If you take regular medications, call your doctor and ask if you can get a three-month prescription filled. You want to make sure you won’t run out. 

What is a “presumptive” case? How is that different from a “confirmed” case or a “suspected” case?

A suspected case is someone who is being monitored for coronavirus with suspicious symptoms, but has not been tested. A presumptive case has been tested in ways that meet the CDC guidelines, but were not done by the CDC. Because of delays distributing testing kits, the cases initially announced in Oregon were presumptive or “presumed coronavirus” cases. Once the CDC gives its stamp of approval, it’s confirmed.

Any last advice?

I wasn’t kidding, self-care is important. Buy some chocolate. I bought brownie mix and too many Girl Scout cookies.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2003.04 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1705 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1841 - Commas need help - Comma Splice - TAMU Writing Center

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-splice/

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1841 - Commas need help - Comma Splice - TAMU Writing Center - and two more

So, this first comma splice video came to me via my colleague Amber Lemiere at LCC.

It came at the right time to teach students in my classes some basic writing stuff.

It's a cute video, and it shares a cute mnemonic that I did not know for remembering the coordinating conjunctions that one uses with commas.

Conjunction mnemonic: FANBOYS - For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.

After the TAMU (Texas A&M) video, I added two more that I liked. The first guy, from EngVid, is after my heart with the same wardrobe I employ - a comic book themed t-shirt under a long sleeve shirt that I invariably have to take off when I get too hot.

Some good stuff in that video, but I am dubious about this sentence and it's comma (italics for text contrast):

James has not been to Barcelona, nor has he lived in London.

James, the video narrator, suggests a comma in this sentence. Seems to me that the second clause is dubiously complete. "Has he lived in London" would normally be a question, but as a standard clause it's not in the right order: "he has lived in London." And yet, "Has he lived in London" would be considered a complete question.

I am picking nits because I am sure James would not release a video in which he makes an error. After all, the sentence contains both a subject (he) and a verb (has lived) despite the order of the words, and so the clause qualifies as complete.

However, my first impression was that it looked incomplete, especially because it lacks the usual "neither-nor" structure that one should employ when using the word nor.

Still, I like James' style. The transcript and comments for the video follow below.

The other video has more rules, and I like the completeness, though the presenter is less dynamic and amusing. Nevertheless, I considered at another video, but the presenter suggested putting commas where one pauses, and I really hate that advice. NO PAUSES. Our modern language is so broken that there are no standard pauses, and even when language was more formally delivered by and large people still paused at will and subjectively. The system works some of the time and works with some speakers, but it's no substitute or short cut to knowing the rules.

And so, here are the videos. Enjoy.








Do you know how to use commas? In this lesson, you'll learn simple rules for using commas with coordinating conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions connect two ideas or clauses in a sentence. We'll look at the most common conjunctions: 'for', 'and', 'nor', 'but', 'or', 'yet', and 'so'. Knowing how to place commas in your sentences will help you to write better, and will make your writing easier to read. This grammar lesson is essential for anyone who wants to improve their English writing. It is especially important for university writing, or if you're taking IELTS or TOEFL. So join me in this fun lesson, and learn to love the comma! And take the quiz on this lesson at http://www.engvid.com/writing-skills-... TRANSCRIPT Fanboy and Comma girl, a love story. By Mr. E. Hi. I'm James from engVid. And you're probably wondering: What the hell am I talking about? Fanboy and Comma... Comma Girl, okay? She's a superhero, and our boy loves her. In case you don't know what a fanboy is because you may not follow comics or movies as religiously as these guys do, I've got a definition for you. So let's just read: What is a "fanboy"? A person who is loyal to a game, person, or company, regardless if it sucks or not. That's not quite true, but what they are talking about is that fanboys love their products. If they love Apple, it is the best the universe has ever produced. And if Apple does something wrong, help them, somebody help them because they will be angry. But generally put, they just love their products so much, they let everybody know about them. Anybody with ears that will listen or who cannot escape from them. All right? So how does this have anything to do with English and grammar? Well, this is a grammar lesson, and I find sometimes grammar can be incredibly boring, so let's make it a little bit fun. So we created a love story by Mr. E. Now, let's start off with comma. Because what is this lesson about? It's how, well, conjunctions, which I'm going to get to, work with commas and sentences. Some of you might have problems with them, I mean, some of you might even go: "Conjunctions, what are they?" So I'm going to talk about the most common conjunctions, and I'm going to talk about comma usage. Okay? We're going to do a quick lesson, here, and I'll make it fun. You ready? So the first thing we should talk about is a comma. What is a comma? It's a punctuation mark. When you have sentences, there's a time to take a breath or to complete it. Okay? Now, periods, you may know, end sentences or ends thoughts. A comma sometimes gives us a breath or it gives us a pause between parts of a sentence, or gives you time to catch your breath, or get part of an idea. Okay? We also use it for lists. There's Frank, okay? Frank, Billy, John, Susie, you know, lists. Lists of things. Knives, forks, scissors, dah, dah, dah, and you'll have comma, comma, comma, separating them, keeping them individual. And finally, we can also... Well, there's more uses, but these are general. We can use them for numbers, large numbers. You know this, we can say 1,000, there'll be a comma to indicate 1,000, and two commas to indicate 1,000,000. So largers... Numbers larger than 1,000, you'll have commas somewhere. All right? That's basically what the comma is used for. Three different uses. So, what are fanboys? Well, I told you they're excited about everything, right? Well, there's a little bit more than that. They're conjunctions. If we look here, I wrote "conjunction", and I put exactly what a conjunction is. It means to join something together. In this case, when we have usually conjunctions, we join two ideas together. If we use a conjunction with a comma, normally you're going to have clauses, and the clauses will be balanced or equal. Okay? Later on we'll go into all of that, but that's what's going to happen when we have usually a comma and a conjunction. You know, there are clauses being used and they're balanced. But: "What are the conjunctions?" you might ask. Well, let's start off with... These are the basic ones. There are more, but these are the most common ones, and we use this acronym which is a word made up from the first letter of each word so you have something that's easy to remember, and I chose FANBOYS. And in a second, I'll reveal why. "For", it gives you a reason. Why did they do this? Okay? "And" ideas that go together.





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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2003.03 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1704 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1840 - David Byrne on SNL 2002.29 - "Once in a Lifetime"

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1840 - David Byrne on SNL 2002.29 - "Once in a Lifetime" - Musical Monday 2003.02


I have always been a huge fan of David Byrne and all he does. I talk about Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts every semester. I just did that talk and collected BUSH OF GHOSTS content here:

https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1728-my-life.html


So, I was thrilled to see Bryne returning to SNL Saturday.

I was also excited to see a performance of "Toe Jam" that Byrne did with Dizzee Rascal, a rapper I learned of many years ago and kept on my radar as a talent to watch.

Today's Musical Monday is devoted to the two SNL performances because NBC helps... Thanks SNL.






https://www.stereogum.com/2075076/david-byrne-saturday-night-live-promo/video/

David Byrne is performing on Saturday Night Live this weekend in what’s shaping up to be a big 2020 for the rock legend. His show, American Utopia, is coming back to Broadway in the fall for another run of shows and it’s getting a film version directed by Spike Lee.

But before all that, he’ll be on SNL opposite host John Mulhaney, and a particularly robust spread of promos for the show has been released today. Byrne goofs off opposite Mulhaney and Heidi Gardner, who appears in a promo for the first time and gets coronated by the both of them. They all seem like they’re having a good time.

Artist: The BPA

Featured artists: David Byrne, Dizzee Rascal

Album: Toe Jam

Released: 2008

Genre: Grime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_Jam_(song)

"Toe Jam" is a song by British electronic act The Brighton Port Authority, released as the first single from the act's album I Think We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat. The song was composed by and features musician David Byrne^[2] and rapper Dizzee Rascal. The song was listed at number 14 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 best songs of 2008.^[3]

The music video for the song, directed by Keith Schofield, predominately features naked dancing men and women. The censor bars placed over their genital areas and the females' breasts form figures on the screen. The music video received much attention on the Internet.^[4]

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2003.02 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1703 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.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1839 - Bullies, Viral Memes, and Manmade Pathogens: Contrary Brin From Feb 25 2020

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1839 - Bullies, Viral Memes, and Manmade Pathogens: Contrary Brin From Feb 25 2020

Big share today. I love the CONTRARY BRIN BLOG.



this post:

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2020/02/lethally-infectious-was-this-virus-man.html

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Lethally infectious! Was this virus man-made in Wuhan? And even worse viral memes

Some added information about the disease now labeled SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19. 

First let's have some background. “Gain-of-Function” or GoF is a type of virus research in which experimenters augment a pathogen’s abilities to better understand infection processes. According to Strategic News Service, the NIH stopped funding for GoF studies in 2014^, given the danger, before lifting the pause under the new administration in 2017, and publishing guidelines to avoid creating dangerous pathogens. One GoF project already underway was a collaboration between the University of North Carolina and 15 researchers from various institutions, including  the Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology where they  have worked actively on bat coronaviruses. 

Yes, in Wuhan.

Now dig this: “The novel coronavirus is genomically most similar to  bat coronaviruses, excepting that “the receptor-binding domain of 2019-nCoV was closer to that of SARS-CoV.” In other words, somehow this bat virus acquired the binding surface traits that allowed SARS to attach to human cells. Now there are natural ways this can happen! Generally slowly and at low odds, and at first with low human-to-human spreading…

… but those odds can be augmented hugely — in a lab. SNS points out that virulent strains have escaped from Wuhan and Beijing labs before. Moreover, the Chinese government delayed access to the country by outside WHO and CDC teams for no stated reason.

Note also that the bat virus that SARS-CoV-2 is based upon is not endemic to the Wuhan area; it came from elsewhere and hence likely was not a natural infection at the Wuhan animal market.

As SNS summarizes: “If the PRC government insists that any concerns regarding manufactured pathogens are nonsense, it must back up those bold claims with transparent data, granting the WHO and the CDC full access, and it must cease any further obstructionism in the investigation.”

And now the other kind of viral disease, likely far more lethal to civilization.

== Infectious memes feed dictatorship ==

In The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik reviews two books (including How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century) about how foolish it is to under-rate despots as merely cruel ogres. More often than not, there is canniness, a feral cunning and brilliance at manipulative use of language. And in many cases — Lenin, Mao, Stalin — a real proclivity for language and articulate writing.  In other cases, the cunning persuasiveness was more direct and visceral, via spoken words.

“Hitler was always unhappy with the slowness of reading and writing, compared with the vivid electricity of his rallies. Where the Marxist heritage - being theory-minded and principle-bound - involves the primacy of the text, right-wing despotism, being romantic and charismatic, is buoyed by the shared spell cast between an orator and his mob. One depends on a set of abstract rules; the other on a sequence of mutual bewitchments.”

And yes, I have said it for years. The deep underlayer of the confederacy - now trying for an 8th time to crush our American Enlightenment Experiment - is romanticism. 

Gopnik should have referred, at least in passing, to Hannah Arendt’s classic ruminations on despotism. But his first paragraph is noteworthy, even if that’s all you peruse. 

We are indeed, amid a rare glimmer of light across millennia of brutal darkness imposed by our worst (if Darwin-explicable) male drives. We must fight for this enlightenment experiment not just because the alternative has proved relentlessly stupid and cruel, but because our way is so vastly more productive of all things — science, art, wealth, and diversely accountable progress. 

Indeed, those traits are why today’s would be tyrants have only one way forward. Encouraging hatred of every single thing that makes us smart or good.

== Overlooking flaws ==

The evangelical community is riven apart over whether to condemn or to worship the most opposite-to-Jesus liar-narcissist-bully-traitor imaginable. What I’m looking for is how this falls out along denomination lines! Whether Methodists and Presbyterians align with Episcopalians Buttigieg and Biden...

... while it’s mostly Southern Baptists and correlated “independent ministries” who support Trump-Putin-Fox, the way similar sects supported the slaveholding plantation aristocracy.

“We’re all flawed humans and sinners,” they proclaim, shrugging off DT’s daily spasms of bile, hate, theft, abuse and schoolyard bullying, an excuse they never allowed for Clintons or Obamas, who – unlike all Trumps - attend church and can recite the Apostle’s Creed from memory. Theirs is a grudge that can never be quenched, despite 25 years searching in vain for substantial and verified sins by either the Clintons or Obamas.

Might one demand some contrition from the Russian mafia-oligarchs who used to be deemed satanic (deservedly so) when they oppressed and murdered and conspired against us as communists, but who now get a complete pass from our right-wingers because they claim to be  “Christian traditionalist”? The very same guys! Might our redders at least demand a surface show of penitence, before handing our country over to them, or denouncing our own “deep state” professionals who are blocking Putin’s perfect putsch?

Now news that the number of Southern Baptist and correlated ministers accused of sexual crimes is approaching 1000 and accelerating as victims come out. And 263 have been convicted. And leaders of the GOP party-of-turpitude lead dems in every category of sin, by far. It didn’t start with Trump. Look up Dennis Hastert. Look up the marriages of Newt Gingrich or recall who was the first divorced man in the White House. Or which states lead in teen sex, STDs, domestic violence, gambling and so on.

Demand wagers on all of the above! Watch how quickly the yattering moralists flee, just like those schoolyard bullies.

== The crux challenge to your decent conservative neighbors ==

When folks ask how anyone would support a thieving, treasonous, infantile, nasty, narcissistic playground bully who is the most opposite-to-Jesus human on the planet, you have only to picture who would deem those traits to be positive things.

The first two words – “thieving” & “treasonous” - are the ones of interest to “ex” communist KGB agents, Saudi murder-princes, carbon lords, gambling moguls, monopolists, Mafiosi and inheritance brats who think they can “control” this populist madness… the way Prussian barons thought they controlled Hitler. They think they can guide their blackmailed assets – Trump and the GOP - into “taxes and judges” while dismantling our sciences, alliances, rule-of-law and other enlightenment strengths, eliminating the “fact elites” that block their oligarchic power…

… all while still maintaining the modern systems that keep them rich and safe from genuine populist revolt. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, their billions spent on propaganda encourage white working class “populist” resentment of fact elites and law, by portraying both as weaknesses. Ponder that. When we complain about all this – especially when offended by Trump – we are nerds on a playground, whimpering “that’s not fair!”

If any of you who recall what that jungle-feudal playground culture was like – way back in 8th grade – then you remember that whining “That’s not fair!” was mother’s milk for the bullies. They loved it! As today’s MAGA fools adore every single thing ol’ Two Scoops does to upset or enrage us. (George Lakoff laid all of this out more clearly than I can.) Take for example the quintessential bully moment that distilled everything loathsome about Trumpism, when he mocked the disabilities of a reporter, in order to deflect serious questions.

Any person possessed of minimal human decency would have then-and-there declared anathema such a wretched person along with all who cheered him. And yes, there are decent Americans who cringe at the meanness and fact-hating and stupidity and enabling of foreign despots. I reiterate, we must reach out to otherwise-conservative folks like military officers and citizens of Utah, who hate that shit!

Yet so many of them hug Fox, suckling straight from the flickering pixels, desperately swallowing the only rationalization that’s left: “Liberals are worse… liberals are worse… liberals are worse…”

We need to make clear that we are not seeking an extinction of American conservatism, but resurrection of earlier versions that admitted the primacy of decency, logic, empathy, courtesy and facts. That decent American conservatives throw off the movement’s lunatic, plutocrat and Muscovite and Salafist hijackers, before coming back to rejoin us at the negotiation table. We must promise to listen, if they’ll do that. But first they must end – decisively – their affiliation with evil and treason.

and Brin news...

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2020/02/david-brins-2020-newsletter-updates_21.html

Friday, February 21, 2020

David Brin's 2020 Newsletter & Updates

Our first newsletter in three years has gone out! Here’s the web version. Lots to report and new books to enjoy!

First, alas, I must report that Escape From Kithrup - the awaited next chapter of the Uplift Saga isn’t ready! (By a fair amount, alack.) But meanwhile, here’s good stuff to (star)tide you over! Starting with...

* The Ancient Ones: My very new novel - a light-hearted space comedy - will feed your under-nourished guffaw-neurons! Kindle and POD editions go live on the equinox (3/19/20). Star Trek meets Hokas & vampires. 

Is comedy hard? Groan and laugh at sample chapters, then pre-order! 

Demmies aren’t so bad. They mean well. Impulsive and exasperating, sure. Often brilliant, cheeky, moronic, volatile, always astonishing... did I mention exasperating? The Alliance of Worlds wouldn’t be the same without them. Some would prefer it!

With a lovely-fun cover by Patrick Farley!

== And more 'items' of interest! ==

* Veering from the comically absurd to the seriously insane, I skewer today’s crazy politics in Polemical Judo. Our current crisis needs fresh perspectives! 100+ tactics may help our struggle for civilization. Sample chapters here - then help fight for a better future.

* A Need for Heroes: a stand-alone story about courage - and saving the world, now on my website (Excerpted from Earth).

* Sundiver, my first novel, came back into our hands after 38 years. We made corrections, gave it a new cover and introduction. Now available as an ebook and paperback versions on Kindle/POD. But - Shout if you want that long-awaited, collectable hardcover! 

* All my short story collections - including The River of Time, and Otherness as well as Insistence of Vision - are back! (My best work.) We've also re-released Heart of the Comet ( my collaboration with Gregory Benford). 

* The video for Existence, by web artist Patrick Farley, is 3 minutes of sheer, chilling beauty. 

* In the recently released volume After Shock: Reflecting on 50 Years of Future Shock - a hundred futurists explore bold ideas about the human future; I have an essay debating the ideas of Yuval Harari. A volume with some Big Thinkers!

 * Chasing Shadows was called “the decade's best theme anthology.” Stories by Cat Rambo, Rob Sawyer, James Morrow and other masters — plus William Gibson & Damon Knight classics —  examine benefits and pitfalls of our coming transparent world. Co-edited by Stephen Potts.

== And we need you... yes, YOU! ==

Sci-fi-nerds save the world? Picture some weird event. Starships fulla inky squids. Trees walk or cyber-newborns talk! A commission (I’m on some) hurriedly advises governments. Might 80 years of thoughtful SF tales prove useful? With UCSD's Arthur Clarke Center, I set up TASAT - There’s a Story About That - to host discussion of wide-ranging what-if scenarios - and maybe someday save us all. Subscribe. Join the Group Mind! (Web-admin folks needed.) 


* Speeches and consulting: See over 300 NGOs, companies, activist groups and agencies I’ve consulted or given keynotes about a future that slams into us with wave after wave of onrushing change, both down here and in space.

* Cool watchables!
 

Brin on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)  


Will humanity diversify?  


The plague of getting ‘mad as hell.’  


Shall we lift the Earth? 


“Project Neo.”  

Others range from SETI to ESP to colonizing the galaxy.

Want more? Find frequent news and views on the always-provocative Contrary Brin blog.

Or follow me on Twitter / FaceBook or Quora.

The David Brin website offers free stories, samples, favorite books, videos, nonfiction, ideas and more.

I may speak in your area. So check my calendar. This summer, I'll be in D.C. as well as in Seattle in July - for Westercon: The 73rd West Coast SF& F convention.) See you in the future!

Finally: Okay it's been a Sci-Fi'ish year, even Twilight Zonish! But there's hope for an ambitious future and worthy civilization. Make it so!

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2003.01 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1702 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.