I like the fact that home test kits for COVID-19 will soon become available but they sound too complicated and intrusive to garner broad use. The target needs to be something like a pregnancy test.
This quote attributed to Garry Kasparov on Scripting News is so true:
Don’t dare say ‘But the system worked’ when a majority of Republicans in Congress support the overturning of a free and fair election. You don’t celebrate a cancer not having killed you yet. You celebrate when you’re cancer free
I believe that those willing to step out of the forest are seeing the thrashing of the withdrawal symptoms of a society deeply addicted to itself.
“Several years ago when I was in Nicaragua, I asked a man if he had time, and he said, “I have the rest of my life,” and smiled. Who of us would possibly say that? That is what we don’t have. What we don’t have is the rest of our lives because we do not even have the now of our lives.”
“Time is exactly what we do not have. What decreases in a culture of affluence is precisely and strangely time—along with wisdom and friendship. These are the very things that the human heart was created for, that the human heart feeds on and lives for. No wonder we are producing so many depressed, unhealthy and even violent people, while also leaving a huge carbon footprint on this poor planet.”
— Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent by Richard Rohr a.co/43XJm0A
I am really surprised that there haven’t been more Wear OS watches with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4100 CPU announced for the Christmas buying season. Wondering what that might mean for Wear OS?
I do not take comfort in SCOTUS deciding to not take up Texas' lawsuit against the four swing states. First, SCOTUS simply hid behind procedure and thus were not the adults in the room standing against tyranny. What is even more troubling to me is that I am sure President Trump fully expected “his” SCOTUS justices to keep him in office, I am sure in his mind that is what they owed him for seating them. The fact that any person considers any judges to be “his,” particularly Justices is frightening.
What we must learn from this episode of U.S. history is that it matters how anyone who would be President views the powers and responsibilities of the office. The U.S. Constitution is not intended to give anyone extreme powers, its intention is exactly the opposite. The fact that people think elections are all about power shows how much we have strayed from the founding principles of the United States.
If we don’t learn from this year and make meaningful changes then all we have done is prevent the end of the U.S. for the time being and increased the likelihood that it will not see its tricentennial. It takes more to preserve freedom than waving a flag and standing for the national anthem.
Tim Wu makes a good case that the vaunted “checks and balances” of the U.S. constitution has not really shown to be reality. The only thing that has prevented democracy in the U.S. from being overthrown has been the integrity of a frighteningly small number of people.
In my opinion we must not allow Republicans to paint a picture that this threat has only been because of Donald Trump. None of what we have endured is due to just Trump, in fact a case can be made that none of it is on Trump, instead it has all been on the Republican Party. Never forget, Trump won the Republican Party nomination for President, and if he had not then we would have not had four years of a Trump presidency and who knows how many fewer lives would have been saved from the pandemic.
We can’t be patting ourselves on the back thinking democracy prevailed. All that we really have is possibly a victory of one battle, but Republicans have been waging war on the United States since the 1940s and will continue fighting that war in to the future. As long as there is no consequence on Republicans they will remain to be a clear and present danger.
Not surprised that SCOTUS fumbled the ball. It seems nobody is willing to make a stand for democracy.
Disney announced many shows coming to Disney+ but I ask when? I signed up to Disney+ last year but honestly the only things I got from it so far is the Mandolorian and Hamilton. Really, it has been disappointing so far.
Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics., from the November, 1964 issue of Harper’s Magazine. I guess this thinking has always been with us, but seemingly growing every more powerful.
Thank you, Dr. Zhang:
Dr. Zhang acted without being incentivized by the huge amounts of money that the companies will receive—Moderna’s stock has increased almost 700 percent already—and he faced down potentially catastrophic consequences for himself and his lab.
The phrase “enemy of democracy” has a sinister bearing. But how else to describe those who would use raw political power in Republican-controlled legislatures to overturn a national election? Public officials swear an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is a mandate that responsible citizens should take seriously.
I read a lot and have started building a list of the books I read along with a very high level summary of what I lead from the reading, but it is nothing like the book summaries available at Durmonski.com. Recommended.
I think main lesson we need to learn from COVID-19 is that a pandemic can and will happen again in the United States and we need to address it nationally like we address every other threat. A part of why the response was so chaotic in beginning is that the Trump administration just viewed the previously implemented contingencies as just “Obama fat” to be trimmed. We need to accept what has happened is bad enough to work to prevent it from happening again.
I am so tired of these “what Republicans are saying privately” pieces. It’s time for the press to stop coddling Republicans. If they don’t say it publicly, don’t say anything, don’t help their attempt at soothing their conscious. Republican’s need to own Trump.
Despite potential claims to the contrary, I am not sure I see much difference between Om’s idea of what Twitter should do and Apple News, of which I am currently trying a free trial.
I took a look at my Xfinity (Comcast) account again today due to the pending enforcement of their data caps. What I see on Xfinity’s site is that while I thought they had turned caps off, it might have been on since July. What bothers me is that it doesn’t look like Xfinity provides any warning to users when they are about to exceed their data cap. I thought there was an account configuration so that I could have Xfinity send me an email when I’ve consumed 50% and 75% of the data, but I don’t see any option. In my opinion, any service that has data caps and corresponding charges when they are exceed should be legally required to provide customers warnings that they are going to exceed those caps.
Zeynep Tufekci warns that we must stop thinking a coup can’t happen here. Coup attempt is the right adjective for what is taking place, and we need to recognize that while Trump is the public face of the coup, Republicans are willing and active participants. If you claim yourself a patriot the following must be seen as true and terrifying.
What starts as farce may end as tragedy, a lesson that pundits should already have learned from their sneering dismissal of Trump when he first announced his presidential candidacy.
Individualism is the core principle of conservatism, which is why something as simple as recognizing that we have to work together is seemingly so difficult in our country.
How the United States is responding to COVID shows just how much the conservative ideology has metastasized within society.
I am still bumming since learning on Friday that Len Kasper is leaving the Chicago Cubs to be the lead radio announcer for the White Sox. What I like about Len is that he is a genuine baseball guy, he isn’t a broadcaster who also does baseball, so moving from TV to radio makes sense. Of all sports baseball is best for radio.
My life experience with the Chicago Cubs has always been narrated by TV play-by-play guys: Jack Brickhouse, Harry Caray, Chip Caray, and Len Kasper. There have been a few others who have been briefly behind the mike, but these are the voices that replay in my head.
The first words are Jack’s calling another Dave Kingman home run. Most of the words are spoken by Harry, who was with me from teenager to adult. Chip is sentimental following his grandfathers death, where Len will always be part of the Cubs finally making it to and winning the World Series in 2016.
White Sox fans are getting a great baseball guy to tell them the White Sox story when baseball starts in 2021. I might try to listen to a few games, particularly when the White Sox come to Detroit and Len sits closer to Ernie Harwell’s seat. In the meantime I’ll watch for who will be next at broadcasting for the Cubs.