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Posted at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Posted at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I never thought I'd ever need to send a message like this to my elected representatives in Congress, but here we are—the first industrialized banana republic on the path to collapse spearheaded by a racist narcissist-in-chief and aided and abetted by a submissive sycophantic Senate. 😕
If you agree with me on this one, please do reach out to your congresspeople and express your opinion on this (or any other) issue you feel is of urgent action. We are still a representative government, and we need to let our representatives know what we care about.
“It is imperative you do everything in your power to stop Trump’s gestapo. NOW.
There are clearly a LOT of issues going on all at once right now, but it is so clearly obvious that Trump trying to push us into a fascist state is by far the most troubling and urgent. The continued existence of our country depends on correcting this. Please fight this with all the power and leverage and voice you have. And please let us—your constituents—know how we can best help support you in your efforts. Thank you.”
Posted at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
To quote from this satire piece on McSweeneys, “[We] will proceed as if everything will be okay because we really, really want it to be.”
There are a class of parents I call LIENs—litigious indignant entitled narcissists. Their self-worth is very much caught up in the success of their kids, so their kids must have ALL THE THINGS to ensure they can crush the competition of their lesser peers. In-person instruction is one of those things. They don't want to be bothered with the details of the pandemic and safety concerns. They want others to “nerd harder” and figure out a way to make things safe for their kids in-person. (But of course if the district does allow in-person instruction and their kid gets COVID-19, you can bet your bottom dollar they will be suing the district for negligence.)
Also they are likely both working parents, and god forbid either of them even think about taking some time off from their very important jobs to help with the education of their children. They pay taxes for the school district to both educate and babysit them during the day. They shouldn't have to make any sacrifices in this pandemic. That is for the rest of the world around them to do.
Posted at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A neighbor on NextDoor (of course) is miffed that public schools aren’t offering the choice for parents to send their kids to classrooms in person. Here was my response:
This is equivalent to you buying a car, but you want the choice to have it without seat belts, antilock brakes, airbags and all of the other safety features. The manufacturer says we cannot give you that choice because those features not only protect you, but everyone else in society. And you are upset because they aren’t honoring your ability to choose. You are trying to compel the public schools to offer a “choice” that is demonstrably against public health interests to satisfy your own personal interests.
Posted at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
BRISTOL, UK July 17, 2020 — Fulfilling one of the last unmet desires of Charles Darwin, William Pryor—great great grandson of evolution’s progenitor—is poised to publish initial data on a study envisioned by his famous ancestor.
“While all of the data he collected from the animal kingdom fit beautifully with his overall theory, G.G. Grampa [Charles Darwin] still felt that in order to truly solidify his work, he needed to include some experimental data from Homo Sapiens. Unfortunately there never was an ethical way to run such an experiment. That is, of course, until now.”
Now that people around the world have been self-selecting into the experimental groups envisioned by Darwin’s theoretical—but completely immoral—study, Mr. Pryor has been furiously gathering the data and sorting them into these groups.
”Sweden has really done a great job establishing the control here,“ said Pryor. “Contrast that with countries like Finland, Croatia, New Zealand, and Mongolia”
“And now we even are seeing more fine-grained data coming out of the USA with Florida, Georgia and Arizona voluntarily moving themselves into the control,” exclaimed Pryor, his voice elevated in pitch and tempo, nearly tripping over his words as he spoke. “I couldn’t have engineered this any better myself if my name were Eduard Wirths. Gosh, look how excited I am!”
He noted that the data is coming in from literally everywhere in the world, which will help him eliminate any possible experimental bias. “Age, gender, race, education, socioeconomic level, medical condition… we are going to have enough data to slice and dice any way we want. Which is awful. But also great. What scientist wouldn’t be thrilled to have so much data to support their work?”
While he is cautious that any conclusions from the first tranche of data is preliminary, it does show a high correlation between infection/mortality and those with demonstrating cognitive biases. “People who score below average on Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, and above average on Neuroticism [3 of the big five personality traits from psychology] are 2–10× more likely to contract the virus. Personally I would have thought it to be more correlated to physical health. But that’s why we do scientific experiment, right? Hypotheses need to be proven or disproven by the data.”
When asks how he thought Charles Darwin would react to all of this, Pryor became introspective and solemn. “I think he would appreciate having the further scientific validation of his theory, but not at the costs we are seeing to human life and society. He would take no pleasure profiting from the pain we are collectively experiencing right now.”
“Now if you will excuse me, I need to get back to work. The data has been coming in with increasing volume—a nearly exponential curve, if you will—and I don’t want to fall behind.”
CC BY-SA 4.0
Posted at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Washington Post published an op-ed by Richard Zoglin purporting that Trump’s sense of humor is akin to that of Andy Kaufman and Sacha Baron Cohen. (It's so toxic, I won't even dignify it with a link.) This strikes me as an anthropomorphic epitome, equivalent to ascribing wit, grace and charm to a wilted turnip rotting in the sun.
As a counterpoint, I present this fantastic piece of prose from British writer Nate White. It’s is a year old now, but still so amazingly apt. Note the abundance of alliteration. Awesome.
“Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace—all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humor is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is—his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain, we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency—and he breaks them all. He punches downwards—which a gentleman should, would, could never do—and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless—and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority—perhaps a third—of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”
Posted at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
“People should NOT wear masks when exercising, as masks may reduce the ability to breathe comfortably. Sweat can make the mask become wet more quickly which makes it difficult to breathe and promotes the growth of microorganisms. The important preventive measure during exercise is to maintain physical distance of at least one meter from others.”
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters
Posted at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)