Thursday, March 05, 2020
COVID-19 Update
I had to go through it a couple of times to get it, and to read the on-screen stuff, but the takeaway is: dose up every day with not more than 50 micrograms (mcg) or 2,000 iu (International Units) of a vitamin D supplement.
Wednesday, March 04, 2020
I ❤️ Virginia
WaPo:
Virginians showed up in record numbers for Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary, leading a national wave of strong voter turnout that analysts said is all about defeating President Trump.
Roughly 1.3 million Virginia voters cast ballots, about 21 percent of the electorate, according to unofficial results. That’s up from the previous record of about 986,000 votes and 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, when Barack Obama was challenging Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination.
Back then, voters sensed history in Obama potentially becoming the first African American nominated by a major party. Tuesday’s turnout was different.
Exit polling showed that most voters were seeking a candidate — any candidate — to defeat Trump. Virginia, which has undergone a dramatic blue shift since Trump’s win in 2016, responded more eagerly than any other state. Its turnout represented a 69 percent increase over the 2016 primary, compared to an average jump of 33 percent across nine Super Tuesday states in which the vote count is complete or has been projected by Edison Media Research.
The second-biggest increase was 60 percent in Texas.
“The interest . . . in defeating Donald Trump is so intense that it’s almost unprecedented,” Richmond political scientist Bob Holsworth said.
Virginians showed up in record numbers for Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary, leading a national wave of strong voter turnout that analysts said is all about defeating President Trump.
Roughly 1.3 million Virginia voters cast ballots, about 21 percent of the electorate, according to unofficial results. That’s up from the previous record of about 986,000 votes and 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, when Barack Obama was challenging Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination.
Back then, voters sensed history in Obama potentially becoming the first African American nominated by a major party. Tuesday’s turnout was different.
Exit polling showed that most voters were seeking a candidate — any candidate — to defeat Trump. Virginia, which has undergone a dramatic blue shift since Trump’s win in 2016, responded more eagerly than any other state. Its turnout represented a 69 percent increase over the 2016 primary, compared to an average jump of 33 percent across nine Super Tuesday states in which the vote count is complete or has been projected by Edison Media Research.
The second-biggest increase was 60 percent in Texas.
“The interest . . . in defeating Donald Trump is so intense that it’s almost unprecedented,” Richmond political scientist Bob Holsworth said.
Today's Tweet
"Give a little"
Trump’s decision not to divest from his businesses allowed him to bring in $434 million in personal revenue in 2018, and the Secret Service has spent at least as much taxpayer money at his resorts as he has donated in salary.— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) March 4, 2020
On the other hand, he gave $100k to HHS.
Hero. https://t.co/WnrOfjdv0O
Faux Nobility
Eventually, Capitalism comes down to rich people spending less time doing the actual work, and more time concocting a reasonable-sounding rationalization for being self-centered rent-seeking assholes.
Veronika Tait, PhD - Psychology Today:
Republicans and Democrats explain wealth in different ways. In a survey by Pew Research Center, participants were asked why a person is rich. The majority of Republicans said a person is rich because they worked harder, whereas most Democrats said that it was because they had advantages in life. On why a person is poor, most Republicans attributed it to a lack of effort, whereas the overwhelming majority of Democrats said it was because of circumstances beyond control. So which is it?
Recent findings show that only half of today’s 30-year-olds earn more than their parents. However, 90% of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents. Rather than the ‘rags to riches’ fairytale so many of us want to believe in, opportunities vary widely depending on the occupations of one's parents. Researcher Michael Hout found that social mobility is far from the norm.
Some may argue that the current generation experiences lower ambition and greater entitlement compared to generations past. However, the data indicates that millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers did at the same stage of life, despite achieving higher levels of education. While business leaders work hard, it’s difficult to defend the jump in the ratio of pay between a company’s CEO and their average worker at 30:1 in 1978, skyrocketing to 299:1 in 2014.
- and -
With ideals of meritocracy reinforced in American culture, it is tempting to assume that those who are wealthy have worked hard and fairly earned their affluence. But that wouldn’t tell the whole story. One study from 2017 found that 60% of wealth is inherited rather than worked for. There are also stories of executives exploiting workers, such as Jeff Bezos, who recently purchased the most expensive home in California and whose workers reported peeing in plastic bottles because they could not use the bathroom during their shift.
Some advantages had by the successful are less visible. For example, I worked hard to receive academic scholarships and ultimately earned a Ph.D. in Social Psychology with no debt. However, it would be unfair for me to not also acknowledge my own privilege at play in my accomplishments. My parents never handed me a wad of cash, but they did raise me with clean water and sanitary living conditions, adequate nutrition, a stable environment, a strong support system, quality healthcare, and a lack of childhood trauma.
Evidence suggests that simply having wealth, whether earned or by luck, increases one’s justification for it. Also known as the Just-World Fallacy, those who are on top of the social ladder, that is, those with money, power, and influence, believe the world is just. Those in the middle think the world is somewhat just, and those at the bottom believe the world is unjust.
Researcher Paul Piff cleverly demonstrated this by giving some participants a clear advantage in a game of Monopoly such as giving them extra money. When he asked participants why they (inevitably) won, they described how they had made smart decisions, and downplayed their privileged position.
Those who believe the world is just, that is, believe you get what you work for, are more likely to justify inequality and victim-blame. If those who are wealthy are automatically seen as good, it is assumed that the poor must have done something to deserve their misfortune.
Veronika Tait, PhD - Psychology Today:
Republicans and Democrats explain wealth in different ways. In a survey by Pew Research Center, participants were asked why a person is rich. The majority of Republicans said a person is rich because they worked harder, whereas most Democrats said that it was because they had advantages in life. On why a person is poor, most Republicans attributed it to a lack of effort, whereas the overwhelming majority of Democrats said it was because of circumstances beyond control. So which is it?
Recent findings show that only half of today’s 30-year-olds earn more than their parents. However, 90% of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents. Rather than the ‘rags to riches’ fairytale so many of us want to believe in, opportunities vary widely depending on the occupations of one's parents. Researcher Michael Hout found that social mobility is far from the norm.
Some may argue that the current generation experiences lower ambition and greater entitlement compared to generations past. However, the data indicates that millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers did at the same stage of life, despite achieving higher levels of education. While business leaders work hard, it’s difficult to defend the jump in the ratio of pay between a company’s CEO and their average worker at 30:1 in 1978, skyrocketing to 299:1 in 2014.
- and -
With ideals of meritocracy reinforced in American culture, it is tempting to assume that those who are wealthy have worked hard and fairly earned their affluence. But that wouldn’t tell the whole story. One study from 2017 found that 60% of wealth is inherited rather than worked for. There are also stories of executives exploiting workers, such as Jeff Bezos, who recently purchased the most expensive home in California and whose workers reported peeing in plastic bottles because they could not use the bathroom during their shift.
Some advantages had by the successful are less visible. For example, I worked hard to receive academic scholarships and ultimately earned a Ph.D. in Social Psychology with no debt. However, it would be unfair for me to not also acknowledge my own privilege at play in my accomplishments. My parents never handed me a wad of cash, but they did raise me with clean water and sanitary living conditions, adequate nutrition, a stable environment, a strong support system, quality healthcare, and a lack of childhood trauma.
Evidence suggests that simply having wealth, whether earned or by luck, increases one’s justification for it. Also known as the Just-World Fallacy, those who are on top of the social ladder, that is, those with money, power, and influence, believe the world is just. Those in the middle think the world is somewhat just, and those at the bottom believe the world is unjust.
Researcher Paul Piff cleverly demonstrated this by giving some participants a clear advantage in a game of Monopoly such as giving them extra money. When he asked participants why they (inevitably) won, they described how they had made smart decisions, and downplayed their privileged position.
Those who believe the world is just, that is, believe you get what you work for, are more likely to justify inequality and victim-blame. If those who are wealthy are automatically seen as good, it is assumed that the poor must have done something to deserve their misfortune.
Sarah Kendzior:"When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live."
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
This New America
We're living in a new America now - not a nation of laws, but a nation of, "make me".
"I do what I want" is our new national motto. Right and Wrong have become fungible. There's no honor in the way we're doing things.
Which is why it's the perfect atmosphere for a Donald Trump.
This is not a guy who does what's right because it's the right thing to do. And he doesn't restrain himself from doing what's wrong simply because it's wrong and people shouldn't do it.
Trump will sign on the dotted line and then have no problem reneging when it comes time to settle up.
The approach is that he'll do what he's promised to do only if his lawyers convince him that your lawyer's can force him to do it.
So notice how he's constantly going after the courts. He's trying to bring social pressure against specific judges in order to sway their decisions.
And he's getting lots of help from Mitch McConnell, who's been very busy stacking the federal bench with ideologues who have no real function other than to find ways to agree with the Daddy Staters.
This shit gets worse until Trump is forced out of office, but then we have to concentrate on moving against the other elements of the Daddy State - which, conveniently enough, happen to be largely Republican, so we keep hammering away at the GOP until the "moderates" can get back in the saddle over there.
"I do what I want" is our new national motto. Right and Wrong have become fungible. There's no honor in the way we're doing things.
Which is why it's the perfect atmosphere for a Donald Trump.
This is not a guy who does what's right because it's the right thing to do. And he doesn't restrain himself from doing what's wrong simply because it's wrong and people shouldn't do it.
Trump will sign on the dotted line and then have no problem reneging when it comes time to settle up.
The approach is that he'll do what he's promised to do only if his lawyers convince him that your lawyer's can force him to do it.
So notice how he's constantly going after the courts. He's trying to bring social pressure against specific judges in order to sway their decisions.
And he's getting lots of help from Mitch McConnell, who's been very busy stacking the federal bench with ideologues who have no real function other than to find ways to agree with the Daddy Staters.
This shit gets worse until Trump is forced out of office, but then we have to concentrate on moving against the other elements of the Daddy State - which, conveniently enough, happen to be largely Republican, so we keep hammering away at the GOP until the "moderates" can get back in the saddle over there.
Monday, March 02, 2020
COVID-19 Update
1st, John Oliver
The worrying parts:
The virus is highly infectious, potentially nearly twice as infectious as the flu. It might be far higher, there isn’t anywhere near enough data yet.
The "R0" (the number of people who're likely to be infected by any given infected person) is thought to be between R1.4 and R3.8
And then, Adam Wren at Medium (kinda long):
Read through the bits about what to do to avoid exposure etc, and then -
The worrying parts:
The virus is highly infectious, potentially nearly twice as infectious as the flu. It might be far higher, there isn’t anywhere near enough data yet.
The "R0" (the number of people who're likely to be infected by any given infected person) is thought to be between R1.4 and R3.8
Infected people could spread the disease for up to two weeks before showing symptoms.
Some people don’t show any symptoms at all and could infect an enormous number of people.In The Atlantic, Marc Lipsitch, a leading epidemiologist at Harvard reported that “that within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19”. This was last week and while ridiculed at the time, his assumptions are now the generally accepted position among epidemiologists.
Some people don’t show any symptoms at all and could infect an enormous number of people.In The Atlantic, Marc Lipsitch, a leading epidemiologist at Harvard reported that “that within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19”. This was last week and while ridiculed at the time, his assumptions are now the generally accepted position among epidemiologists.
And try not to obsess on this kinda shit. Understand the scope of the ramifications, just don't get too hung up on the Hair-On-Fire triggers.
Assuming pretty much all of "best case scenario" data so far, here in USAmerica, Inc, it could look like this:
If 40% of the population contracts the disease = 132,000,000 people
If 20% of those require hospitalization = 26,400,000 patients (in about 800,000 available beds)
If 25% of those require ICU admission = 6,600,000 (in about 95,000 available beds)
If 2% of those with severe illness die = 132,000 dead Americans (which could be a lot closer to half a million or more)
Just the troubles we could have getting people into a bed to care for them can make the thing worse, so we have to remember that one of the big problems that can grow out of a big health problem is that the problem can often make itself worse.
Just the troubles we could have getting people into a bed to care for them can make the thing worse, so we have to remember that one of the big problems that can grow out of a big health problem is that the problem can often make itself worse.
So in addition to difficulties getting a handle on a problem where everybody kinda follows the rules and there's a strong organization with solid leadership:
- We have a fair-sized demographic that won't seek treatment - because they can't afford it, or they don't have access to facilities, or because of personal denial - and that will mean a wider-spread contagion
- Some of the healthcare workers will succumb to the disease, and that number will be increased if (when) the system becomes overwhelmed
- Consumable Resources (masks, oxygen, syringes, etc) will run short because the disease will remove some of the people from the supply train
 |
| And as always, look sharp, feel sharp, be sharp |
Things Have Changed
The Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863
 |
| Let's just say it didn't make southerners real happy |
And then:
Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826
WaPo:
(Charlottesville) -- His name still adorns much of the city, from the public library to a private winery. And from the foot of a mountain dedicated to him, his statue still gazes out over the university he founded.
But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.
For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.
Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.
“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”
His name still adorns much of the city, from the public library to a private winery. And from the foot of a mountain dedicated to him, his statue still gazes out over the university he founded.
But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.
For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.
Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.
“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”
But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.
For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.
Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.
“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”
His name still adorns much of the city, from the public library to a private winery. And from the foot of a mountain dedicated to him, his statue still gazes out over the university he founded.
But lately, in ways both small and seismic, Thomas Jefferson’s town has started to feel like it belongs to someone else.
For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery.
Liberation and Freedom Day, as the new holiday is known, will commemorate when Union troops arrived here on March 3, 1865, and freed the enslaved people who made up a majority of Charlottesville’s residents.
“This marks a wholesale shift in our understanding of the community’s history,” said Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who helped organize the events, which, despite the name, stretch all week. “To take Thomas Jefferson’s birthday off the calendar and add this is a big deal.”
Across the country, especially in the South, communities are arguing over how to tell more inclusive and accurate histories.
Nowhere has this clash been more fraught than in Charlottesville, where parks have been renamed, then renamed again, streets have been re-christened, and stickers bearing white supremacist slogans go up as quickly as activists can remove them.
It's not that anyone wants to get rid of Jefferson - nobody's trying to "expunge" any history. In fact, the efforts to remove Confederate monuments and to change the story in order to include relevant details, are actually about stopping the expungement of those details - the parts of our history that make us uncomfortable.
Jefferson had greatness in him. He did some awesomely awesome things. But just like all the other founders - just like all of the rest of us - he had his shortcomings.
I'm not afraid to learn as much as possible about my heroes - warts and all.
Today's Tweet
Fourth time's the charm.
Can’t. stop. watching. pic.twitter.com/ED5BLZ7myv— Tomthunkit™ (@TomthunkitsMind) March 1, 2020
via RexChapman 01
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)