Month: March 2020

2020 Dem Candidates Debate–#11

Will this one be popular since there will be no March Madness bracket crap…….and we are down to 2 candidates….well 3 but only 2 participating…….

But first I think that the whole process of debates should be repaired for as it is now….it is badly broken.

We must break ourselves from the (relatively) new phenomenon of these mass-debates. After all, we’re now almost in the third decade of the new century. There is absolutely no need to remain in the framework of setting a mass debate (or, God-forbid, a two-tiered set of mass debates).

It starts with this straightforward concept: over the months leading up to the first primary, each candidate will debate every other candidate in the field once, for one hour, in a traditional political debate. This means that if there are twenty candidates in the Democratic Primary field, once a week in the six months between June 2019 and January 2020, each candidate will match up against another.

With a one-minute introduction from the moderator, this debate clocks-in at sixty-one minutes, giving each candidate a full twenty-nine minutes per debate to make their case!

This should help those on the fence (if there are truly anyone left with that much integrity) decide who will be the man….will it be Biden….or maybe Bernie?

The night was eventful……no audience to cheer or boo or moan or……..

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are taking part in a very unusual Democratic debate: Because of the coronavirus crisis, there is no live studio audience at the debate, which was shifted from Phoenix to Washington DC. Before their first head-to-head matchup, the two candidates greeted each other by bumping elbows. In accordance with CDC guidelines, the podiums a the CNN-hosted debate are 6 feet apart. Moderators confirmed that the debate’s main focus would be the COVID-19 pandemic. Some highlights:

  • “This is bigger than any one of us.” Biden, asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what he would tell Americans affected by the closure of schools and businesses, said “This is bigger than any one of us” and called for a “national rallying” to fight the virus, reports the Guardian, which notes that he coughed several times during his response.
  • Medicare for All. Biden and Sanders clashed over whether Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan would have improved the situation, the AP reports. “One of the reasons that we are unprepared, and have been unprepared, is we don’t have a system. We’ve got thousands of private insurance plans,” Sanders said. “With all due respect to ‘Medicare for All,’ you have a single-payer system in Italy,” Biden said. “It doesn’t work there.”
  • Protecting themselves. The candidates were asked how they were protecting themselves from infection, with moderator Dana Bash noting that Sanders, 78, had a heart attack last fall. Both candidates said they had stopped holding rallies and were washing their hands frequently. “Fortunately I don’t have any of the underlying conditions you talked about that I have to worry about,” said Biden, 77.
  • Bank bailouts. The candidates clashed over the value of bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis, with Sanders arguing they should have been paid for by a tax on the wealthy. “We can’t repeat what we did in 2008. Joe voted for that. I voted against it,” he said.
  • Biden would mobilize military. Biden said he would call out the military to deal with the crisis, the Hill reports. “They have the ability to provide this surge that hospitals need,” he said. “They have the capacity to build 500 hospital beds and tents that are completely safe and secure.” Sanders said calling out the National Guard is something that “has to be done.”
  • Sanders targets Trump on China. Sanders, asked about China’s downplaying of the outbreak when it was in its early stages, slammed the way Trump had spoken about the country, the Washington Post reports. “What bothers me very much is you have a president of the United States today, Mr. Trump, who was praising China for the good work that they are doing when in fact, as you indicated, they were lying to their own people and allowing that virus to move much more aggressively than should have been the case,” he said.
  • Bailout for families. Biden said the country needs a “major, major, major bailout package” to help families that have taken a financial hit from the crisis. “We do not “reward corporations, we reward individuals who in fact are really put to the test here,” he said.
  • A pledge to support each other. Asked how he would attract Sanders supporters, Biden said “he’s making it hard for me right now” with attacks on his voting record in the Senate, CBS reports. But he vowed to campaign for Sanders if he becomes the nominee, and Sanders said he would do “everything humanly possible” to defeat Trump.
  • Agreement on immigration. Both candidates agreed on the need for immigration reform, with Sanders pointing out that he is the son of an immigrant, ABC reports. “Kids are scared to death when they come from school, their mom or dad may not be there,” Sanders said. “I will end this on day one, the ICE raids, that have been so harmful to so many people.”
  • Promise on female running mates. Biden promised to pick a woman to be his vice president, saying “There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow.” Sanders decline to make the same promise, but that said “in all likelihood” he will choose a female running mate.
  • Biden’s Iraq vote. Asked by Tapper what he learned from his 2003 vote for the Iraq war, Biden said he “learned I can’t take the word of a president when in fact they assured me that they would not use force,” the New York Times reports.
  • Cuba comments resurface. Sanders was once again asked about remarks he made praising some of Fidel Castro’s programs. the Guardian reports. “I have opposed authoritarianism—whether it’s in it’s in Cuba, whether it’s in Saudi Arabia, whether it’s in China or whether it is in Russia,” Sanders said. “That is my life record.”
  • Final coronavirus question. In the final question of the night, the candidates were asked how they would reassure Americans about the outbreak. the Post reports. Sanders said it was an opportunity to “rethink America and create a country where we care for each other.” Biden said it was an “all-hands-on-deck” situation. “This is about America. This is about the world. This is about how we bring people together and make the kind of sacrifices we need to make to get this done,” he said.

Not as interesting as I had hoped…..be thankful you have someone to break it down and you can read a good book.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Happened To The Arms Race?

If you are old enough to remember the Cold War then the term “arms race” is something you are aware of…..but for those youngsters here on IST….

An arms race occurs when two or more countries increase the size and quality of military resources to gain military and political superiority over one another. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is perhaps the largest and most expensive arms race in history……

But thank God with the end of the Cold War the dangerous game of arms race in nuclear weapons disappeared….think again!

We ended our involvement in the INF and that is an invitation to an arms race……

If you asked the Pentagon, they would tell you in no uncertain terms that the US is not engaged in any sort of nuclear arms race. At the same time, the US is spending heavily on new nuclear weapons, and is particularly scrambling to get weapons designed to target Russia.

Officials described a recent table-top war game where Russia carried out a tactical nuclear first-strike against NATO territory during a conflict in Europe. This idea of Russia attacking first seems to be informing a lot of US policy decisions.

The exercise saw a low-yield Russian nuke deployed, and the US arsenal, still limited on lower options, ultimately decided that their only response was a much bigger strategic nuclear strike on Russia, starting a civilization-ending nuclear exchange.

Though seemingly the risk of such a war would be a deterrent against a Russian first-strike, the Pentagon is arguing they need more low-yield options so they can engage in tit-for-tat nuclear wars at a lower level.

Analysts have been very concerned about these developments, because the Pentagon very publicly views lower-yield nukes as more usable, and this risks the US deploying them in attacks on non-nuclear states.

(antiwar.com)

If there is NO arms race then why would the Pentagon be begging for more funds for nukes?

The US spends tens of billions of dollars annually on nuclear weapon modernization schemes. Every year, the Pentagon complains it is insufficient, and that continued with StratCom head Admiral Chas Richard, who warned that the US is “almost on a path to disarmament.”

Given how much the US spends, this is a vastly expensive sort of disarmament. Since the US outspends all other nuclear powers, it is hard to imagine that the problem is that the US needs to spend more, and while the admiral suggested the US should “invest smartly,” it’s clear he also wanted more money.

The narrative is that if the US continues at the current heightened level of spending they’ll still end up having to virtually rebuild their entire infrastructure or no longer be a nuclear power. This seems to be overly alarmist, but is just the sort of thing that would sell Congress on bankrolling more arms.

Still, while Strategic Command is built around always spending more money on more arms, and never couches it as an option, it must be considered if proper disarmament is worth considering. After all, if tens of billions of dollars every year can’t maintain an arsenal, the US could at least save that money by no longer pretending to be modernizing it.

(antiwar.com)

In case you want more info…..

he Pentagon’s five-year nuclear weapons plan calls for requesting at least $167 billion through 2025 — building from the $29 billion sought for next year to $38 billion, according to previously undisclosed figures.

The commitment includes research, development, procurement, sustainment and operations. It reflects a major boost to an effort started under President Barack Obama to replace aging nuclear systems, such as Minuteman III missiles and command and control systems.

It doesn’t include funding for the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which is requesting $19.8 billion for fiscal 2021, including $15.6 billion for nuclear weapons activities.

https://time.com/5790901/pentagon-nuclear-weapons-spending/

So all indications are that we are still in an arms race with the USSR….my bad….Russia.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Sunday’s Random Thoughts

The weekend….Mississippi has its first virus case….our temps are from 66 to 77 degrees….so our winter that never appeared is still just a hope of us old farts.

It s that time again!

As usual….more notes than posts….so I will let you know what I was marking for posts that never appeared…..

As we get older it is said that our brains have a tendency to shrink…..so a couple of exercise in case you are worried about that…..

In a new study, researchers found that older people who regularly walk, garden, swim or dance may have bigger brains than their inactive peers.

The effect of exercise was equal to four fewer years of brain aging.

The research was conducted by a team at Columbia University.

Recent studies have shown that as people age, physical activity may reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

The study involved 1,557 people with an average age of 75. None had dementia, but 296 people had mild cognitive impairment and 28% had the APOE gene that is linked to a greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

These 4 exercises may prevent brain shrinkage in older people

A little something for those people that believe that aliens have visited earth in the far past……

A mineral-like Jarosite, which is found on the surface of Mars, has been discovered at Ashapura temple in Kutch (Gujarat) by scientists, proving the fact that the land at the holy place is similar to that of Mars, according to Zee Media report.

Many renowned scientists from the country and the world are jointly researching on this subject. They believe that the only place in the basalt terrain containing jarosite has been buried at the temple site in Kutch from the last 7.2 million years.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and National Geographical Research Institute Hyderabad will start a joint exercise on the surface. NASA scientists have also visited the site.

https://zeenews.india.com/india/mineral-found-on-surface-of-mars-discovered-at-ashapura-temple-in-kutch-scientists-2268693.html

That ought to keep the Ancient Alien people busy for awhile concocting a theory to fit the finding…..

Now a little scientific stuff……AI wonks have created a drone that can echo-locate like a bat……

Drone technology just got a step closer to becoming fully self-navigating: Taking a page out of a bat’s playbook, engineers developed a rig that lets drones chart out their surroundings using echolocation.

Purdue University engineers equipped a drone with a speaker and an array of four microphones and let it loose in a series of rooms, according to research published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Algebra and Geometry. And while self-navigating drones are neat, the engineers said in a press release their work could lead to better car backup cameras or help people with disabilities navigate.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/drone-echolocates-bat

That is just plain cool.

One last thought…..Drive Through virus testing…..

Medical centers are trying out an ingenious method of coronavirus testing that minimizes contact, maximizes efficiency, and relies on a near-ubiquitous mode of transport: drive-through testing stations.

After all, drive-through windows are already used for picking up food, coffee, drugs, cash, and even groceries.

Drive-through tests for the deadly COVID-19 disease, first pioneered in South Korea, are becoming an increasingly popular option, with countries including the US, Germany, and the UK working on opening their own.

“There’s less face-to-face contact,” Lee Jae-joon, the mayor of Goyang, a city in northern South Korea, told CNN earlier this month. “If you operate a testing site indoors, there is concern that suspected patients can infect each other in the waiting room.”

https://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-centers-opening-drive-thru-coronavirus-testing-stations

We have drive thru weddings, drive thru pharmacy, drive thru funerals, drive thru food so a drive thru testing sounds pretty logical to me…..

My day begins in the garden with the hint of citrus blossoms in the air…..I wish I could bottle that smell……NOTHING smells better!

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Plus the Peach tree is blooming as well…..sadly not as fragrant as the citrus…..

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MoMo had a bout with a coon early this morning…..she could have woke up the dead….LOL…..right now she is torturing me for making her give up the chase for the coon…..she is pouting.

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Enjoy your day…..smile a little and laugh a lot.

“lego ergo scribo”

Recent US Deaths Update

I reported the other day about 2 more Americans being killed in Iraq as well as a soldier of them UK……https://lobotero.com/2020/03/11/iraqi-deaths-update/

Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. A British service member was killed in the Taji rocket attack. She served as a reservist with the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry, having joined in 2015 as a Combat Medical Technician.

May she rest in peace and her family find some peace…..

The two American deaths ……

The Americans that were also killed in this attack……

The military on Friday identified the two U.S. troops killed in a rocket attack on Camp Taji in Iraq as Army Spc. Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias, 27, of Hanford, California and Air Force Staff Sgt. Marshal D. Roberts, 28, of Owasso, Oklahoma.

Mendez Covarrubias was assigned to 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Roberts was assigned to 219th Engineering Installation Squadron of the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s 138th Fighter Wing.

“The international military coalition is capable and credible because of warriors like Juan, Brodie, and Marshal,” said Lt. Gen. Pat White, commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition to defeat the Islamic State. “They volunteered to serve the United States and United Kingdom to improve their lives and help keep the world free from ISIS terrorism. Our fallen comrades have a legacy that will never be forgotten.”

4 deaths of US soldiers in 3 days time…..not something that looks good for our time in Iraq.

May they find peace….and may their families find the closure that we all search for….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Soap And Water Works Just Fine

My state gets its first sufferer and the panic began….stores are short of TP, Paper towels, frozen food and bread…..and of course hand sanitizer.

There have been reports that people are having a hard time finding the hand sanitizers that they feel is their only defense from the virus…..well it is not…..

The coronavirus has people freaking out about toilet paper, which may seem a little odd. It’s a little easier to understand the run on hand sanitizers, which are now hard to find on store shelves. But the CDC and others are emphasizing a key point: Hand-washing with ordinary soap and water, for 20 seconds, is actually better than using hand sanitizers when it comes to COVID-19. The following explain and amplify the point:

  • CDC guidance: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “recommends washing hands with soap and water whenever possible because handwashing reduces the amounts of all types of germs and chemicals on hands,” reads the CDC advisory. “But if soap and water are not available, using a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol can help you avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.”
  • Agreement: “Sanitizer might feel like a modern-day, scientific, and more clinical upgrade to soap,” writes Brian Resnick at Vox. “But I’m here to tell you that soap—all sorts of it: liquid, solid, honeysuckle-scented, the versions inexplicably only marketed to men or women—is a badass, and even more routinely effective than hand sanitizer. We should be excited to use it, as much as possible.” His piece is based on an interview with Palli Thordarson, a chemistry professor at the University of New South Wales.
  • Why? The CDC runs through a number of reasons why this is so, including: “Soap and water are more effective than hand sanitizers at removing certain kinds of germs, like Cryptosporidium, norovirus, and Clostridium difficile. Although alcohol-based hand sanitizers can inactivate many types of microbes very effectively when used correctly, people may not use a large enough volume of the sanitizers or may wipe it off before it has dried.”
  • Scientist’s explanation: The above-mentioned Thordarson put up a Twitter thread explaining what’s going on here, which involves the chemical nature of soap and how it interacts with the virus. At the Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff boils it down: “The virus is a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer. Soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and dies—or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.” Or as Thordarson puts it to Vox: Soap “is almost like a demolition team breaking down a building and taking all the bricks away.”
  • A how-to: So, yes, to recap, use soap and water often—or use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol when you’re not near a sink—but it also matters that you wash your hands thoroughly for 20 seconds. And you’ve got to hit everything: The Wall Street Journal has a video tutorial.

Please…..be calm….use commonsense…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Finally A National Emergency!

The president finally went on TV and declared a national emergency just in time to get the markets closing.

Personally, I think he is about a week too late….but as they say….better late than never….

But enough of what I think…..here is what was said……

President Trump addressed the nation for the second time Friday about the coronavirus pandemic, this time to declare a national emergency. Trump said he would invoke the Stafford Act, typically used for natural disasters, which he said will free up tens of billions in emergency aid for states. It also means FEMA will play a bigger role in coordinating the federal response, reports Politico. Among other things, the result could be the construction of mobile hospitals and temporary shelters. Related:

  • Faster tests: The White House has been taking flak for the lack of coronavirus test kits available, and the administration took steps Friday to fix that, reports the New York Times. The Department of Health and Human Services will give more than $1 million to two companies, DiaSorin Molecular and Qiagen, to ramp up development of the tests. Also, the FDA set up a 24-hour hotline for private and academic labs to process tests and authorize new ones.
  • Drive-thrus: Soon, people may be able to make use of drive-thru testing sites. The Washington Post reports the White House is partnering with the private sector and local health departments on the idea. The story notes that South Korea, widely hailed for its handling of the pandemic, has had such sites in use. Essentially, people head to a drive-thru clinic set up in a parking lot to be swabbed, and specimens are then sent to labs for testing.
  • More help: Alibaba founder Jack Ma says he will donate 500,000 test kits and 1 million masks to the US through his foundation, reports Mashable.
  • ‘Flatten the curve’: As the US and other nations cancel mass gatherings, the phrase “flatten the curve” is gaining widespread use. The idea is that nations must slow the spread of the disease, starting immediately, or hospitals will be overwhelmed. A post at Vox has details, along with the origins of one doctor’s graph explaining the principle.

After this pandemic some interesting news has dribbled out about the CDC…..

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention became the latest target of President Donald Trump’s attempts to deflect blame for what is being roundly condemned as a disastrous response by his administration to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump claimed, without evidence, on Friday that the federal agency had for decades sat idle on efforts to build an adequate testing system—a situation he blamed former President Barack Obama for supposedly exacerbating. Trump’s latest twitter fusillade comes despite the fact that his administration has directly controlled the CDC for more than three years. The president then repeated the lie that his predecessor failed to act on the H1N1 outbreak—commonly known as the swine flu—until thousands had already died.

Trump, Still Hoping to Slash CDC Funds, Blames CDC for Coronavirus Fiasco

Did you know that the US was ill prepared for this pandemic?

The logical answer to that question is….NO SHIT!

A secret report by the Director of National Intelligence says that the United States is starkly unprepared for a global pandemic — and the White House is blocking its release.

At least, that’s according to two senior government officials who blabbed to Time about the report, which was scheduled to be released early February, according to the magazine. But, says Time, plans to release it were scrapped as the COVID-19 coronavirus started going global.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/secret-gov-intel-report-us-unprepared-global-pandemic

There is always info coming out daily….and so far that has done little to help the situation other than confusing the shit out of everyone which feeds the fear and panic.

Any thoughts?

I Read. I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–13Mar20

I just would like to pass on a few thoughts on writing.

I write all the time, everyday……between taking notes and writing in IST most of my time is spent doing what I enjoy…..first is what I think when I read some blogs/posts…..that’s not writing, it is typing.

These are a few thoughts that one should consider before they attempt to write…..

“The heart and soul of good writing is research; you should write not what you know but what you can find out about”. Robert J. Sawyer

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Benjamin Franklin

You are always seeing those “how to” blog post on the proper way to write…..well there are 3 rules to writing whether blog or book….

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” W. Somerset Maugham

“Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.” Horace

“If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.” Tennessee Williams

“Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.  Hermann Hesse
 
“Writing is a calling, not a choice.”  Isabel Allende
 
“Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.”   Nassim Nicholas Taleb

This is my favorite quote about writing…..I do not know who said it but it is very true to me.

“Writing takes an act of love or it is just scribbling”?  (There is lots of scribbling out there)

I Read I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Southern Democrats

In the last round of primaries my state of Mississippi voted for Biden (go figure)….but that was going to be a “gimme” for Biden.

The turnout in Mississippi was up 17% from last election and that was a surprise for me.

Southern Democratic voters are more conserv than most GOPers….why is this?

the website….fivethirtyeight takes a look at these voters….

From 1964 to 2008, three Democratic presidential candidates made it to the White House. All of them were southerners. Yet for the last half-century, the GOP’s Southern strategy eroded the Democratic Party’s stronghold on the South. States on the edges of the South — Virginia, Florida and North Carolina — have turned purple or a light shade of blue, but the heart of the South unquestionably remains Republican territory in presidential elections.

Nonetheless, Democratic voters in the South still exert significant influence on the party during the primary season. The states of the former Confederacy1 will elect a little over one quarter of Democrats’ pledged delegates in 2020 — six of them on Super Tuesday (Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia). And so as the 2020 Democratic primary contests move to the South, I figured it was worth a dive into what happened there in the 2016 Democratic primary, based on a 2016 survey of 3,668 Americans by the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics, of which I am the director.2 It illustrates the ways in which Democrats in the South are different from Democrats outside of the region — differences that may again come into play in 2020.

What Makes Southern Democrats Unique

The problem I see, especially in Mississippi is the voter has a tendency to vote against their own best interests.

Take Rep. Gene Taylor who was a staunch conserv Blue Dog Dem and voted with the feelings of his people only to lose his seat in 2010 and his only crime was he was a Dem and was linked to “demon” Pelosi….his voting record meant NOTHING to low information voters.

Now my state has a toadie sycophant that will be lead around by his genitals by the president and business.

So Biden’s win in the primary was not a surprise for the Mississippi voter will fall for every one liner and slogan that comes down the pike.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Picking A Nominee

College of Political Knowledge

2020 and we are off to the races as they say in picking our next president….personally I think it is a silly operation from the start…..but we continue to do the same thing over and over (and you know what that means)……we, as voters, need to take stock in the nomination process and other political theatrics……..

There is always criticism but it seldom leads to any reform or change….2020 is no different….

Want evidence that our process for selecting presidential nominees is a joke? Look at the last Democratic debate: “Three candidates in their 70s—and no African-American or Latino,” writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. “There are two people who have never won an election—and zero who have ever run a state.” Want more evidence? Look at the “reality-television star” who hijacked the GOP nomination process in 2016 and now sits in the White House, he adds. People say this is merely democracy in action, but it’s not, writes Leonhardt. “It’s one version of democracy,” and the US is pretty much the only nation that relies on this weird mix of polls, donor numbers, and “distorted” primaries. Other countries give political parties more say in picking nominees, and Leonhardt thinks a middle ground can be found here.

“I’m not suggesting we return to the smoke-filled rooms of the past,” he writes. “But the current process puts a higher priority on the appearance of democracy than the reality of it.” Some suggestions: On the debates, it’s fine to give poll leaders guaranteed spots, but the party could also reserve spots for a governor and perhaps a swing-state senator. In the primaries themselves, more states should embrace ranked-choice voting, rather than the winner-takes-all approach. And the primary calendar should rotate every four years to end the ridiculous prominence given to Iowa, New Hampshire, etc. The first to vote would always include “a mix of states: big and small, young and old, urban and rural, coastal and heartland.” Change is long overdue, writes Leonhardt. Read his full column.

Primaries and such are nothing more than beauty contests and a gold mine for the media….beyond that they are worthless in picking the nominee.  Real issues are seldom on the agenda…..the voter gets one liners and slogans….and in the end NOTHING ever changes.

Can we please change this silliness?

Can we please get back to that lost art of democracy?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”