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May 15, 2020
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a32446503/spot-robot-patrols-singapore/
Spot, the Internet-famous robotic dog fresh off stints defusing bombs, inspecting oil rigs, and helping hospitals fight the coronavirus, has landed his latest gig: terrifying people into social distancing. Since May 8, Spot has been patrolling the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore, functioning like a gatekeeper during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.
Singapore's government is the entity actually funding the robotic dog, per a press release from last week. Spot is meant "to assist safe distancing efforts at parks, gardens and nature reserves" that the government owns. So in the U.S., that would basically be the equivalent of running across Spot at places like Yellowstone or Redwood.
The pilot will last for two weeks, according to the release, and Spot will take on its vigilante duties only during non-peak hours. Additionally, Spot will play a recorded message to remind park visitors to observe safe distancing measures. At least one park ranger will be present during the trial period. "Spot will be controlled remotely, reducing the manpower required for park patrols and minimizing physical contact among staff, volunteer safe distancing ambassadors and park visitors," the government notes in its release. "This lowers the risk of exposure to the virus."
If the trial proves successful—no word on how Singapore is measuring that—the government will consider permanently deploying the robot dog at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park during the morning and evening peak hours. Singapore will also conduct studies to see if it's worth deploying Spot in other parks. The problem? People seem to be pretty perturbed by Spot, practicing social distancing—and then some—to stay away from the dog bot.
https://twitter.com/dfahland/status/1259037491245592576
https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/1259906922817486855
https://twitter.com/aral/status/1258836714774245378
snip
Spot the Robot Dog, Now a Social Distancing Narc, Is Freaking People Out
Good intentions. Bad dog.https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a32446503/spot-robot-patrols-singapore/
Spot, the Internet-famous robotic dog fresh off stints defusing bombs, inspecting oil rigs, and helping hospitals fight the coronavirus, has landed his latest gig: terrifying people into social distancing. Since May 8, Spot has been patrolling the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore, functioning like a gatekeeper during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.
Singapore's government is the entity actually funding the robotic dog, per a press release from last week. Spot is meant "to assist safe distancing efforts at parks, gardens and nature reserves" that the government owns. So in the U.S., that would basically be the equivalent of running across Spot at places like Yellowstone or Redwood.
The pilot will last for two weeks, according to the release, and Spot will take on its vigilante duties only during non-peak hours. Additionally, Spot will play a recorded message to remind park visitors to observe safe distancing measures. At least one park ranger will be present during the trial period. "Spot will be controlled remotely, reducing the manpower required for park patrols and minimizing physical contact among staff, volunteer safe distancing ambassadors and park visitors," the government notes in its release. "This lowers the risk of exposure to the virus."
If the trial proves successful—no word on how Singapore is measuring that—the government will consider permanently deploying the robot dog at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park during the morning and evening peak hours. Singapore will also conduct studies to see if it's worth deploying Spot in other parks. The problem? People seem to be pretty perturbed by Spot, practicing social distancing—and then some—to stay away from the dog bot.
https://twitter.com/dfahland/status/1259037491245592576
https://twitter.com/Wolven/status/1259906922817486855
https://twitter.com/aral/status/1258836714774245378
snip
May 15, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/museum-of-the-bible-obbink-gospel-of-mark/610576/
On the evening of February 1, 2012, more than 1,000 people crowded into an auditorium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The event was a showdown between two scholars over an explosive question in biblical studies: Is the original text of the New Testament lost, or do today’s Bibles contain the actual words—the “autographs”—of Jesus’s earliest chroniclers? On one side was Bart Ehrman, a UNC professor and atheist whose best-selling books argue that the oldest copies of Christian scripture are so inconsistent and incomplete—and so few in number—that the original words are beyond recovery. On the other was Daniel Wallace, a conservative scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary who believes that careful textual analysis can surface the New Testament’s divinely inspired first draft.
They had debated twice before, but this time Wallace had a secret weapon: At the end of his opening statement, he announced that verses of the Gospel of Mark had just been discovered on a piece of papyrus from the first century. As news went in the field of biblical studies, this was a bombshell. The papyrus would be the only known Christian manuscript from the century in which Jesus is said to have lived. Its verses, moreover, closely matched those in modern Bibles—evidence of the New Testament’s reliability and a rebuke to liberal scholars who saw the good book not as God-given but as the messy work of generations of human hands, prone to invention and revision, mischief and mistake.
Wallace declined to name the expert who’d dated the papyrus to the first century—“I’ve been sworn to secrecy”—but assured the audience that his “reputation is unimpeachable. Many consider him to be the best papyrologist on the planet.” The fragment, Wallace added, would appear in an academic book the next year. Though he didn’t mention it onstage, Wallace had recently joined something called the Green Scholars Initiative. The program was funded by the Green family, the evangelical billionaires who own the Hobby Lobby craft-store chain. It gave handpicked scholars access to the thousands of artifacts the family had collected for their Museum of the Bible, a soaring $500 million showplace that would open a few years later near the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Wallace’s ties to the Greens made it easy for observers to connect the dots: The Mark papyrus had to be one of the manuscripts the Greens had bought for their museum. And the papyrologist who worked out its first-century date had to be the world-renowned classicist Dirk Obbink. The Greens were known to have hired him as a consultant during their antiquities buying spree. His enlistment had been a coup. A tall Nebraskan with a mop of sandy hair, Obbink was in his mid-40s in 2001 when the MacArthur Foundation awarded him a half-million-dollar genius grant. His technique for reassembling papyrus scrolls carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in a.d. 79 was a feat of three-dimensional puzzle solving.
snip
A Biblical Mystery at Oxford
A renowned scholar claimed that he discovered a first-century gospel fragment. Now he’s facing allegations of antiquities theft, cover-up, and fraud.https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/museum-of-the-bible-obbink-gospel-of-mark/610576/
On the evening of February 1, 2012, more than 1,000 people crowded into an auditorium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The event was a showdown between two scholars over an explosive question in biblical studies: Is the original text of the New Testament lost, or do today’s Bibles contain the actual words—the “autographs”—of Jesus’s earliest chroniclers? On one side was Bart Ehrman, a UNC professor and atheist whose best-selling books argue that the oldest copies of Christian scripture are so inconsistent and incomplete—and so few in number—that the original words are beyond recovery. On the other was Daniel Wallace, a conservative scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary who believes that careful textual analysis can surface the New Testament’s divinely inspired first draft.
They had debated twice before, but this time Wallace had a secret weapon: At the end of his opening statement, he announced that verses of the Gospel of Mark had just been discovered on a piece of papyrus from the first century. As news went in the field of biblical studies, this was a bombshell. The papyrus would be the only known Christian manuscript from the century in which Jesus is said to have lived. Its verses, moreover, closely matched those in modern Bibles—evidence of the New Testament’s reliability and a rebuke to liberal scholars who saw the good book not as God-given but as the messy work of generations of human hands, prone to invention and revision, mischief and mistake.
Wallace declined to name the expert who’d dated the papyrus to the first century—“I’ve been sworn to secrecy”—but assured the audience that his “reputation is unimpeachable. Many consider him to be the best papyrologist on the planet.” The fragment, Wallace added, would appear in an academic book the next year. Though he didn’t mention it onstage, Wallace had recently joined something called the Green Scholars Initiative. The program was funded by the Green family, the evangelical billionaires who own the Hobby Lobby craft-store chain. It gave handpicked scholars access to the thousands of artifacts the family had collected for their Museum of the Bible, a soaring $500 million showplace that would open a few years later near the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Wallace’s ties to the Greens made it easy for observers to connect the dots: The Mark papyrus had to be one of the manuscripts the Greens had bought for their museum. And the papyrologist who worked out its first-century date had to be the world-renowned classicist Dirk Obbink. The Greens were known to have hired him as a consultant during their antiquities buying spree. His enlistment had been a coup. A tall Nebraskan with a mop of sandy hair, Obbink was in his mid-40s in 2001 when the MacArthur Foundation awarded him a half-million-dollar genius grant. His technique for reassembling papyrus scrolls carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in a.d. 79 was a feat of three-dimensional puzzle solving.
snip
May 15, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/coronavirus-news-updates.html?type=styln-live-updates&label=u.s.&index=0#link-7788f9c8
In Wisconsin, residents woke up to a state of confusion on Thursday after the conservative majority on the State Supreme Court sided with the Republican majority in the Legislature on Wednesday night, overturning a statewide stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. In Michigan, hundreds of protesters, many of them armed, turned out at the State Capitol in a drenching rainstorm after the state had closed the Capitol and canceled the legislative session after threats directed toward Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for the Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, said that while some senators were concerned for their safety, that was not the main reason for canceling the session.)
And in Pennsylvania, some county lawmakers defied the Democratic governor’s orders to keep nonessential businesses closed, and President Trump flew to Allentown for a politically charged visit to a medical supply facility. “You have the one group that’s like, ‘Yay!’” said Patty Schachtner, a Democratic state senator from western Wisconsin. “And the other group is like, ‘Man, life just got complicated.’”
In the three states that determined the 2016 presidential election — and could determine the one in 2020 — the response to the coronavirus is becoming a confused and agitated blend of health guidance, protest and partisan politics, leaving residents to fend for themselves. “My anxiety for this pandemic is not having a unified plan, that we’re all on the same page, and listening to science and the same rules,” said Jamie O’Brien, 40, who owns a hair salon in Madison, Wis., that remains closed because of a local stay-at-home order.
Across Wisconsin, the court ruling left some residents in a festive mood; they headed to taverns to celebrate. Others were determined to stay home, just as they had been doing, worried that it was too soon to return to crowded restaurants and shops. It was a microcosm of a country increasingly unable to separate bitter political divisions from plans to battle a deadly disease. Democratic governors in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, backed by public health experts, have urged caution before reopening. Republican legislatures in those states have been pushing in the opposite direction, arguing that the extended restrictions are threatening their personal freedoms.
snip
The one issue I take with the article is that it left out Florida as one of the most key states. All Trump needs to do is hold FL and WI, and we have almost no path, (even if we win MI, PA, NV, NM, NH, CO, MN, and VA), to beating him short of flipping AZ or NC or IA, and do we really want to come down having all our eggs in those 3 Rethug run (more or less) states?
IF we win FL and MI (and hold CO, MN, and VA, all 3 states where he is massively underwater atm), it basically breaks his back, as he can win WI, PA, OH, GA, AK, IN, TX, IA, AZ, NC, MO, KS, ME-2, NE-2, and either NH or NV and he still loses.(but not both, both plus all those others listed yields him 271 EV's, so even if we flip ME-2 and/or NE-2, he wins either with a 270 or 269-269 tie EC outcome, with the House (26 Rethug state delegations at worst, they could have more) putting him over the top in the latter 269-269 tie scenario, which would be a disastrous outcome that will cause massive chaos and violence, especially as many of the Rethug House majorities are due to illegal gerrymandering)
NYT: Coronavirus Live Updates: Virus Response Widens Political Divide in Swing States
In swing states, the virus has become a polarizing issue.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/coronavirus-news-updates.html?type=styln-live-updates&label=u.s.&index=0#link-7788f9c8
In Wisconsin, residents woke up to a state of confusion on Thursday after the conservative majority on the State Supreme Court sided with the Republican majority in the Legislature on Wednesday night, overturning a statewide stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. In Michigan, hundreds of protesters, many of them armed, turned out at the State Capitol in a drenching rainstorm after the state had closed the Capitol and canceled the legislative session after threats directed toward Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for the Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, said that while some senators were concerned for their safety, that was not the main reason for canceling the session.)
And in Pennsylvania, some county lawmakers defied the Democratic governor’s orders to keep nonessential businesses closed, and President Trump flew to Allentown for a politically charged visit to a medical supply facility. “You have the one group that’s like, ‘Yay!’” said Patty Schachtner, a Democratic state senator from western Wisconsin. “And the other group is like, ‘Man, life just got complicated.’”
In the three states that determined the 2016 presidential election — and could determine the one in 2020 — the response to the coronavirus is becoming a confused and agitated blend of health guidance, protest and partisan politics, leaving residents to fend for themselves. “My anxiety for this pandemic is not having a unified plan, that we’re all on the same page, and listening to science and the same rules,” said Jamie O’Brien, 40, who owns a hair salon in Madison, Wis., that remains closed because of a local stay-at-home order.
Across Wisconsin, the court ruling left some residents in a festive mood; they headed to taverns to celebrate. Others were determined to stay home, just as they had been doing, worried that it was too soon to return to crowded restaurants and shops. It was a microcosm of a country increasingly unable to separate bitter political divisions from plans to battle a deadly disease. Democratic governors in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, backed by public health experts, have urged caution before reopening. Republican legislatures in those states have been pushing in the opposite direction, arguing that the extended restrictions are threatening their personal freedoms.
snip
The one issue I take with the article is that it left out Florida as one of the most key states. All Trump needs to do is hold FL and WI, and we have almost no path, (even if we win MI, PA, NV, NM, NH, CO, MN, and VA), to beating him short of flipping AZ or NC or IA, and do we really want to come down having all our eggs in those 3 Rethug run (more or less) states?
IF we win FL and MI (and hold CO, MN, and VA, all 3 states where he is massively underwater atm), it basically breaks his back, as he can win WI, PA, OH, GA, AK, IN, TX, IA, AZ, NC, MO, KS, ME-2, NE-2, and either NH or NV and he still loses.(but not both, both plus all those others listed yields him 271 EV's, so even if we flip ME-2 and/or NE-2, he wins either with a 270 or 269-269 tie EC outcome, with the House (26 Rethug state delegations at worst, they could have more) putting him over the top in the latter 269-269 tie scenario, which would be a disastrous outcome that will cause massive chaos and violence, especially as many of the Rethug House majorities are due to illegal gerrymandering)
May 14, 2020
A Second Trump Term Would Be A Hellscape Of Indescribable Proportions
No impeachment, no 25th Amendment, no indictments. And, worst of all, no election. Nothing.
https://thebanter.substack.com/p/a-second-trump-term-would-be-a-hellscape
WASHINGTON, DC -- For some time now, I’ve been trying to crystalize into words specifically why a second term of the Donald Trump poseur presidency would be catastrophic for the American republic. And I think I’ve landed on the central reason why it would be a nightmare of gargantuan proportions. We’ve all witnessed, front row center, the ceaseless firehose of news -- endlessly blasting us in the face, around the clock in some cases, with all varieties of soul crushing nincompoopery, maliciousness, racism, misogyny, indecency and genocide-level death since inauguration day. Indeed, the horrendousness extends further back in time to the campaign, but the existential crisis began when Trump officially kerplunked his way into the White House.
So far, we’ve been rendered mostly powerless when it comes to fighting back. While there have been some significant gains in the House through special elections and, naturally, the 2018 midterms, Trump has been able to continue his disruption of the American system without being truly handcuffed. This is, to me, the primary reason for this sense of powerlessness. When it comes to accountability in a second term, there’s little to no chance Trump will be removed through another impeachment. Even if the Democrats take back the Senate, there won’t be 67 votes to remove -- and that’s if Nancy Pelosi is willing to impeach Trump again. So, while a Democratic Congress would thwart the Trump legislative agenda -- and that’s nothing to sneeze at -- Trump will have little fear of another impeachment.
We also know that Bill Barr’s Justice Department will never indict him, at least while he’s president. That door’s shut, too. Likewise, it should be relatively obvious by now that there won’t be any removal through the terms of the 25th Amendment, either. Mike Pence doesn’t have the guts for it, and Trump’s cabinet is, by now, mostly loaded with sycophants and spineless weasels. As of today, the only way Trump can be removed is through the election, and I know very few of us who are 100 percent confident that Trump will lose. Despite that, Trump is constrained by the fact that he has to run again. Sure, he desperately wants -- and needs -- a second term, primarily to keep himself out of prison for a while longer. However, he knows that if he hauls his ponderous bulk too deeply into the realms of despotism and totalitarianism, he might lose in November. Believe it or not, Trump is absolutely constrained by the accountability of the election. It often doesn’t seem like it, but he is. Along those lines, here’s why a second Trump term would be a hellscape of indescribable proportions.
For a moment, think back through the last four years of Trump, including the deadly incompetent response to the plague. Now, imagine all that amplified by a factor of a gazillion, knowing how Second Term Biff would be operating for another four years completely unfettered by all accountability, including an election. No impeachment, no 25th Amendment, no indictments. And, worst of all, no election. Nothing. Four more years, and literally zero constraints on the blood-curdling horror show that would begin on November 4, should this election go badly for Joe Biden and the Democrats. An unconstrained, unaccountable Trump is what some of the more radical Bernie Sanders supporters don’t seem to grasp. In their effort to kneecap Joe Biden’s general election campaign before it’s barely on the ground, and thus helping Trump’s chances, they’re losing sight of the very basic, textbook aspects of what it’d mean to have a president who didn’t really care about or respect the array of constitutional strictures in his first term, and they certainly haven’t stopped to consider how or why he’d become far worse in a second term. All they care about is their agenda, but their agenda will be set back decades if Trump gets the chance to immolate the foundation upon which that agenda would be built.
snip
May 14, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/great-5g-conspiracy/611317/
In the 1970s, the bogeyman was power lines. Low-frequency electromagnetic fields were emanating from them all the time, and a shocking 1979 study suggested that children who developed cancer lived near power lines “unduly often.” Around the same time, because of Cold War panic about radiation in general, televisions and microwave ovens also became a possible human health catastrophe. Later, concern bubbled up around a slew of other household appliances, including hair dryers and electric blankets.
Now the advance of cellphones and, more recently, the new high-speed networks built to serve them have given rise to a paranoid coalition who believe to varying degrees in a massive cover-up of deleterious harm. The devices are different, but the fears are the same: The radiation from the things we use every single day is destroying us; our modern world is a colossal mistake. The stakes are about as high as they could possibly be: If it were true that our cellphones were causing brain tumors, that our wireless devices were damaging our DNA, and that radiation emanating from cell towers was sickening us in any untold number of ways, this would be the greatest human health disaster the world has ever known. As well as, perhaps, its greatest capitalist conspiracy.
It’s too big to be true. The science is confusing, but the World Health Organization, noting decades of research, has found no significant health risks from low-level electromagnetic fields. Yet amid a broader tech backlash—against screens, against social media, against power consolidating in a handful of companies, against a technology industry that rolls out new products and protocols faster than we can keep up or argue with, against the general fatigue and malaise associated with a life spent typing and scrolling—it’s just big enough to seem, to many, like the obvious explanation for so much being wrong.
A wildly disorienting pandemic coming at the same time as the global rollout of 5G—the newest technology standard for wireless networks—has only made matters worse. “5G launched in CHINA. Nov 1, 2019. People dropped dead,” the singer Keri Hilson wrote in a now-deleted tweet to her 4.2 million followers in March. As the coronavirus spread throughout Europe, fears about 5G appear to have animated a rash of vandalism and arson of mobile infrastructure, including more than 30 incidents in the U.K. in just the first 10 days of April. In the case of one arson attack in the Netherlands, the words “Fuck 5G” were reportedly found scrawled at the scene. Mobile- and broadband-infrastructure workers have also reported harassment and threats from deluded citizens: A recent Wired UK report detailed an instance in which a London network engineer was spit on; he later contracted an illness that was suspected to be the coronavirus.
snip
Something in the Air: The Great 5G Conspiracy
The coronavirus pandemic is sparking baseless theories about the dangers of 5G. But the fear that wireless technology is slowly killing us isn’t new—and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/great-5g-conspiracy/611317/
In the 1970s, the bogeyman was power lines. Low-frequency electromagnetic fields were emanating from them all the time, and a shocking 1979 study suggested that children who developed cancer lived near power lines “unduly often.” Around the same time, because of Cold War panic about radiation in general, televisions and microwave ovens also became a possible human health catastrophe. Later, concern bubbled up around a slew of other household appliances, including hair dryers and electric blankets.
Now the advance of cellphones and, more recently, the new high-speed networks built to serve them have given rise to a paranoid coalition who believe to varying degrees in a massive cover-up of deleterious harm. The devices are different, but the fears are the same: The radiation from the things we use every single day is destroying us; our modern world is a colossal mistake. The stakes are about as high as they could possibly be: If it were true that our cellphones were causing brain tumors, that our wireless devices were damaging our DNA, and that radiation emanating from cell towers was sickening us in any untold number of ways, this would be the greatest human health disaster the world has ever known. As well as, perhaps, its greatest capitalist conspiracy.
It’s too big to be true. The science is confusing, but the World Health Organization, noting decades of research, has found no significant health risks from low-level electromagnetic fields. Yet amid a broader tech backlash—against screens, against social media, against power consolidating in a handful of companies, against a technology industry that rolls out new products and protocols faster than we can keep up or argue with, against the general fatigue and malaise associated with a life spent typing and scrolling—it’s just big enough to seem, to many, like the obvious explanation for so much being wrong.
A wildly disorienting pandemic coming at the same time as the global rollout of 5G—the newest technology standard for wireless networks—has only made matters worse. “5G launched in CHINA. Nov 1, 2019. People dropped dead,” the singer Keri Hilson wrote in a now-deleted tweet to her 4.2 million followers in March. As the coronavirus spread throughout Europe, fears about 5G appear to have animated a rash of vandalism and arson of mobile infrastructure, including more than 30 incidents in the U.K. in just the first 10 days of April. In the case of one arson attack in the Netherlands, the words “Fuck 5G” were reportedly found scrawled at the scene. Mobile- and broadband-infrastructure workers have also reported harassment and threats from deluded citizens: A recent Wired UK report detailed an instance in which a London network engineer was spit on; he later contracted an illness that was suspected to be the coronavirus.
snip
May 13, 2020
https://thebanter.substack.com/p/a-message-to-americans-from-the-future
Hello from the future! It is the distant year of 2022 and we thought it would be nice to give you a preview of the hellscape left to us by you ancients (since days feel like years, that’s what we call you people now). We don’t really blame you for the charred and twisted wreckage we live in because you really didn’t have a lot of options at the time. Still, it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of warning signs of what was coming…
https://twitter.com/davidlparsons/status/1258988672084373505
Brave MAGA store owners were standing up for their right to...spread a deadly disease? Well, yes, that’s exactly what the right wing was demanding back in your time. This was America and no one was going to temporarily inconvenience them, goddammit!
It was around this time that the official death count was at around 80,000. We all knew it was way higher but 80,000 was still unbelievably bad. Amazingly, reports were still saying it would take until August to reach over 100,000 dead. That happened by the end of May. By August, because so many states had reopened without mass testing and contact tracing in place, the first wave of Covid-19 never really peaked; it just kept rolling through the country, killing tens of thousands of people a week. By the time the Fall came, almost half a million people had died just from the coronavirus. A few hundred thousand more had died of heart attacks, injuries and strokes who didn’t get medical care in time because the hospitals were overflowing with patients already.
While that nightmare was unfolding, the economy was still spiraling into an extended depression because Trump had no idea what to do and his cronies were too busy looting the treasury to be bothered trying to fix anything. Between the mountain of bodies and mounting economic destruction, Attorney General Bill Barr’s “October Surprise,” opening a massive “corruption” investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, backfired spectacularly. Trump lost in a landslide. Even Texas turned blue for the first time since 1976. We know you ancients were super excited about this and you had every reason to be! Trump was the worst president in America’s history, to be sure. But historical records known as “blogs” show that some people tried to warn you, over and over again, that it was going to get really ugly after that. You probably should have listened.
“Real Americans Don’t Wear Masks!”
Back when you ancients did things like go to school and learn about history, you read about weird stuff our distant ancestors did, like invade the wrong country after 9/11 and think Fox News was actually news. We learn about history sitting around burning cars and telling stories about the before-time. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the right wing, already deep into their collective psychosis, was reaching a new peak of insanity over the pandemic:
snip
A Message To Americans From The Future: Do Not Let Trump Get Away With This
It is the distant year of 2022 and we thought it would be nice to give you a preview of the hellscape you left us in the wake of Trump's Coronavirus disaster.https://thebanter.substack.com/p/a-message-to-americans-from-the-future
Hello from the future! It is the distant year of 2022 and we thought it would be nice to give you a preview of the hellscape left to us by you ancients (since days feel like years, that’s what we call you people now). We don’t really blame you for the charred and twisted wreckage we live in because you really didn’t have a lot of options at the time. Still, it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of warning signs of what was coming…
https://twitter.com/davidlparsons/status/1258988672084373505
Brave MAGA store owners were standing up for their right to...spread a deadly disease? Well, yes, that’s exactly what the right wing was demanding back in your time. This was America and no one was going to temporarily inconvenience them, goddammit!
It was around this time that the official death count was at around 80,000. We all knew it was way higher but 80,000 was still unbelievably bad. Amazingly, reports were still saying it would take until August to reach over 100,000 dead. That happened by the end of May. By August, because so many states had reopened without mass testing and contact tracing in place, the first wave of Covid-19 never really peaked; it just kept rolling through the country, killing tens of thousands of people a week. By the time the Fall came, almost half a million people had died just from the coronavirus. A few hundred thousand more had died of heart attacks, injuries and strokes who didn’t get medical care in time because the hospitals were overflowing with patients already.
While that nightmare was unfolding, the economy was still spiraling into an extended depression because Trump had no idea what to do and his cronies were too busy looting the treasury to be bothered trying to fix anything. Between the mountain of bodies and mounting economic destruction, Attorney General Bill Barr’s “October Surprise,” opening a massive “corruption” investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, backfired spectacularly. Trump lost in a landslide. Even Texas turned blue for the first time since 1976. We know you ancients were super excited about this and you had every reason to be! Trump was the worst president in America’s history, to be sure. But historical records known as “blogs” show that some people tried to warn you, over and over again, that it was going to get really ugly after that. You probably should have listened.
“Real Americans Don’t Wear Masks!”
Back when you ancients did things like go to school and learn about history, you read about weird stuff our distant ancestors did, like invade the wrong country after 9/11 and think Fox News was actually news. We learn about history sitting around burning cars and telling stories about the before-time. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the right wing, already deep into their collective psychosis, was reaching a new peak of insanity over the pandemic:
snip
May 13, 2020
Chicago Fire's Monica Raymund is a lesbian fisheries agent grappling with addiction while also trying to track down a killer in the Starz series set in the LGBTQ mecca.
Last week, the trailer dropped for Hightown, the murder mystery from Starz that's set in the LGBTQ mecca of Provincetown, Mass. And it telegraphed that the series from creator Rebecca Cutter is dark, sexy, and very queer, especially with out former Chicago Fire star Monica Raymund in the lead role as Jackie Quiñones, a party-happy lesbian and fisheries agent who stumbles across the body of a woman who’s been murdered and dumped on one of Provincetown’s storied beaches.
Filmed in Provincetown last summer with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Mudbound, Fruitvale Station) at the helm of the first couple of episodes, Hightown sets a strong visual tone from the outset. It captures the pure queer joy of Provincetown and also the underbelly of crime and sorrow in the wake of the opioid crisis. As Jackie races to uncover the mystery behind the murder, she also grapples with drug, alcohol, and sex addiction.
Now The Advocate has an exclusive teaser for Hightown that underscores the show’s more noir-ish aspects replete with hardscrabble cops and grit. The official synopsis for the series, out May 17, reads:
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Provincetown-Set Hightown Is Queer, Sexy Noir in Exclusive Teaser
https://www.advocate.com/television/2020/4/23/provincetown-set-hightown-queer-sexy-noir-exclusive-teaserChicago Fire's Monica Raymund is a lesbian fisheries agent grappling with addiction while also trying to track down a killer in the Starz series set in the LGBTQ mecca.
Last week, the trailer dropped for Hightown, the murder mystery from Starz that's set in the LGBTQ mecca of Provincetown, Mass. And it telegraphed that the series from creator Rebecca Cutter is dark, sexy, and very queer, especially with out former Chicago Fire star Monica Raymund in the lead role as Jackie Quiñones, a party-happy lesbian and fisheries agent who stumbles across the body of a woman who’s been murdered and dumped on one of Provincetown’s storied beaches.
Filmed in Provincetown last summer with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Mudbound, Fruitvale Station) at the helm of the first couple of episodes, Hightown sets a strong visual tone from the outset. It captures the pure queer joy of Provincetown and also the underbelly of crime and sorrow in the wake of the opioid crisis. As Jackie races to uncover the mystery behind the murder, she also grapples with drug, alcohol, and sex addiction.
Now The Advocate has an exclusive teaser for Hightown that underscores the show’s more noir-ish aspects replete with hardscrabble cops and grit. The official synopsis for the series, out May 17, reads:
"Hightown is set on idyllic Cape Cod and follows one woman’s journey to sobriety, intertwined with an unfolding murder investigation. Jackie Quiñones (Monica Raymund, Chicago Fire, The Good Wife), a hard-partying National Marine Fisheries Service agent, has her free-wheeling life thrown into disarray when she discovers a body on the beach — another casualty of Cape Cod’s opioid epidemic.
"As a result of this trauma, Jackie takes the first steps toward becoming sober — until she becomes convinced that it’s up to her to solve the murder. Now at odds with Sergeant Ray Abruzzo (James Badge Dale of Only the Brave), an abrasive but effective member of the Cape Cod Interagency Narcotics Unit, Jackie starts to spiral. And she’s not alone. Ray, too, spins out of control; losing himself in the investigation. The lives of everyone connected to this murder crash and converge, reminding us just how complicated — and deadly — our addictions can be."
"As a result of this trauma, Jackie takes the first steps toward becoming sober — until she becomes convinced that it’s up to her to solve the murder. Now at odds with Sergeant Ray Abruzzo (James Badge Dale of Only the Brave), an abrasive but effective member of the Cape Cod Interagency Narcotics Unit, Jackie starts to spiral. And she’s not alone. Ray, too, spins out of control; losing himself in the investigation. The lives of everyone connected to this murder crash and converge, reminding us just how complicated — and deadly — our addictions can be."
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May 12, 2020
https://nowthisnews.com/news/oklahoma-city-university-zoom-graduation-hacked-by-racist-message
As graduates’ names scrolled across the screen during a virtual graduation ceremony, a hacker’s racist message disrupted their moment of recognition. The Oklahoma City University ceremony on Saturday was one of many across the country that have shifted to an online format, so students who are achieving a milestone can still celebrate during a deadly virus outbreak that has forced millions of people to stay inside.
The OCU ceremony drew 650 digital attendees and was upended by a message containing a racial slur and a swastika, according to multiple reports. On Sunday, a small group gathered outside of the university to post signs of encouragement with messages like “Love Not Hate.”
https://www.facebook.com/devaunjue.williams/posts/3034713719955848
“My grandma, my mom saw it, and they were really heartbroken,” OCU graduate Leondre Lattimore told local news outlet KOCO. “All we saw was the n-word and a swastika.” Devaunjue “Jay” Williams, a Black student who led a prayer during the ceremony shortly before the hacking, posted a tearful Facebook video on Saturday responding to the incident. In both presentations, he appeared in front of a rainbow “Coexist” flag — the last visual the class saw before the attack. In his video after the ceremony, he said he learned about how to coexist during his time in school.
“We’ll heal. We’ll overcome. We’ll continue to fight for justice,” Williams said. “People are gonna be mad. People are gonna be upset, for whatever reason. Our people are going to continue to prosper. We’re going to continue to do good things.” He added: “If you hate us just because of the way we look, that’s on you, not on us.”
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This Virtual Graduation Ceremony Got Zoom-Bombed With A Racist Attack
Other online gatherings of college students have been disrupted by messages of hate during the coronavirus outbreak.https://nowthisnews.com/news/oklahoma-city-university-zoom-graduation-hacked-by-racist-message
As graduates’ names scrolled across the screen during a virtual graduation ceremony, a hacker’s racist message disrupted their moment of recognition. The Oklahoma City University ceremony on Saturday was one of many across the country that have shifted to an online format, so students who are achieving a milestone can still celebrate during a deadly virus outbreak that has forced millions of people to stay inside.
The OCU ceremony drew 650 digital attendees and was upended by a message containing a racial slur and a swastika, according to multiple reports. On Sunday, a small group gathered outside of the university to post signs of encouragement with messages like “Love Not Hate.”
https://www.facebook.com/devaunjue.williams/posts/3034713719955848
“My grandma, my mom saw it, and they were really heartbroken,” OCU graduate Leondre Lattimore told local news outlet KOCO. “All we saw was the n-word and a swastika.” Devaunjue “Jay” Williams, a Black student who led a prayer during the ceremony shortly before the hacking, posted a tearful Facebook video on Saturday responding to the incident. In both presentations, he appeared in front of a rainbow “Coexist” flag — the last visual the class saw before the attack. In his video after the ceremony, he said he learned about how to coexist during his time in school.
“We’ll heal. We’ll overcome. We’ll continue to fight for justice,” Williams said. “People are gonna be mad. People are gonna be upset, for whatever reason. Our people are going to continue to prosper. We’re going to continue to do good things.” He added: “If you hate us just because of the way we look, that’s on you, not on us.”
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May 12, 2020
Nearly one-third of Americans believe a vaccine already exists to prevent coronavirus infection but is being withheld from the public, while nearly half believe the COVID-19 virus was created in a lab.
As the coronavirus pandemic approached 50,000 deaths in the U.S. – around half didn't believe that figure either – new data suggested many Americans held misinformation about the virus. The death total has now surpassed 80,000 more than two weeks after the results of the survey were published. It signals their mistrust in institutions as citizens are being asked to rely on government, health and other leaders amid the outbreak.
Twenty-nine percent said it's either probably or definitely true that a vaccine that prevents coronavirus infection exists and is being withheld, according to the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project. An even greater percentage, 32%, said they believe treatment that cures coronavirus infection exists but is being withheld. Around 7 out of 10 Americans said those statements are untrue.
"To see about a third of people give that some level of, 'Yeah, that might be true,' that was pretty shocking to me," said Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. "That's a pretty dark type of thought to be floating around the public. There's an undercurrent of a lack of trust in society, a lack of trust in elites."
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Nearly one-third of Americans believe a coronavirus vaccine exists and is being withheld
https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-one-third-americans-believe-090024774.htmlNearly one-third of Americans believe a vaccine already exists to prevent coronavirus infection but is being withheld from the public, while nearly half believe the COVID-19 virus was created in a lab.
As the coronavirus pandemic approached 50,000 deaths in the U.S. – around half didn't believe that figure either – new data suggested many Americans held misinformation about the virus. The death total has now surpassed 80,000 more than two weeks after the results of the survey were published. It signals their mistrust in institutions as citizens are being asked to rely on government, health and other leaders amid the outbreak.
Twenty-nine percent said it's either probably or definitely true that a vaccine that prevents coronavirus infection exists and is being withheld, according to the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project. An even greater percentage, 32%, said they believe treatment that cures coronavirus infection exists but is being withheld. Around 7 out of 10 Americans said those statements are untrue.
"To see about a third of people give that some level of, 'Yeah, that might be true,' that was pretty shocking to me," said Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. "That's a pretty dark type of thought to be floating around the public. There's an undercurrent of a lack of trust in society, a lack of trust in elites."
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