1/ Interesting little story about why Trump got the number of dead from the virus so spectacularly wrong....he relied on numbers cooked up by one of the team of idiots in the White House, not an actual epidemiologist. Good insight into how dysfunctional our gub'mint is....
President Trump’s habit of promising unrealistically low casualty counts is one of the more inexplicable unforced errors in the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “One is too many,” he said on April 20, “but we’re going toward 50 or 60,000 people.” Just four days later, the number of confirmed deaths had already exceeded 50,000. A few days after that, he tacked on another 10,000 to the upper and lower bound, saying, “we’re probably heading to 60,000, 70,000.” That figure is already moot.
https://nymag.com/
2/ Trevor Noah on Elon Musk and other topics....amusing, seven minutes....
3/ Excellent column from Frank Bruni in the Times.....he talks to a woman who saw this coming, and sees more chaos ahead.....good article...
I told Laurie Garrett that she might as well change her name to Cassandra. Everyone is calling her that anyway.
She and I were Zooming — that’s a verb now, right? — and she pulled out a 2017 book, “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes.” It notes that Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.
“I’m a double Cassandra,” Garrett said. https://www.nytimes.com/
4/ One of the side effects of this crisis is a growing resentment of older people......feeling it yet?
Can't preview this because I use an ad blocker.....but it's an interesting story from the LA Times.....
5/ Chuck Schumer was on Colbert's show, and Trump watched the interview and tweeted about it....so Colbert responded! Two amusing minutes....
6/ Republicans and Trump hate the Postal Service....here is why, and what happens if they get their way. Also, what the Post Offices could become....
Very good article from the New Yorker....
I am probably one of the least consequential things my mother has ever delivered. She has two other daughters, for starters—one’s a public servant and the other is a special-education teacher. But she’s also spent her working life delivering love letters, college acceptances, medications, mortgage papers, divorce filings, gold bars, headstones, ashes, and care packages. In her thirty-eight years as a rural letter carrier with the United States Postal Service, she’s delivered just about everything you can legally send through the mail.
7/ And Sam Bee with comedic reporting on why we need the Postal Service, very good nine minutes....
8/ Umair on why the American economy is dying, and what's coming to the middle class....what's left of it....
See that chart above? The line plunging into the abyss? That’s an economy having a heart attack and dying.
9/ Can you tell I love Tom Tomorrow?
10/ A grim look at the future with Chris Hedges, Pulitzer winner and author....
An intelligent and tough analysis of our society, and where it's headed. Warning - you won't like it....
Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges: These "are the good times — compared to what's coming next"
Author of "America: The Farewell Tour": We're heading for a steep decline; Biden and the Democrats have no answers
Empires fall a little bit at a time and then all at once. Over the last two decades, America has proven itself to be well along on that journey. The coronavirus pandemic has simply pushed our nation further along that downward spiral.
Ultimately, the pandemic has further exposed and exacerbated — for those still somehow in denial about the decades-long reality of America as a decaying empire — deep political, social, economic, cultural and other societal problems.
The country's infrastructure is rotting. Trump presides over a plutocratic, corrupt, cruel, authoritarian, pathological kakistocracy.
11/ Great ad from the Lincoln Project.....one minute...
12/ Jamil Smith in Rolling Stone on how Trump and his minions have mishandled the billions that were supposed to support small businesses.....
There is no end to the corruption of these bastards, they don't even try to hide it any more....
The Trump administration blew $349 billion in small-business pandemic aid in four weeks, less time than it took for me to grow out my quarantine beard. That is nothing to be proud of, but President Trump still took his victory lap on Tuesday, boasting about breaking speed records for loans like it was an Olympic sport. Unmentioned were the carelessly written rules that allowed at least $500 million to go to Fortune 500 companies, major hotel chains, and other publicly held corporations. Some will return the tens or hundreds of millions, some won’t. In the midst of a plague and the worst economic collapse in at least a decade, the White House has let in the robber barons to use the Treasury like an ATM. The Paycheck Protection Program should be the latest major Trump corruption scandal — but we aren’t yet treating it as such.
13/ For all the media attention to cruise ship passengers struck down with the virus, there has been minimal coverage about the crew of these ships.....
Interesting story from the Guardian....
he Apex was nearly finished. A brand new cruise ship for the Celebrity Cruises line, it was a towering, 117,000-ton vessel with luxuries like a “resort deck” featuring martini-glass-shaped jacuzzis and a movable platform cantilevered off the side – known as “the Magic Carpet” – to be used as an outdoor restaurant. As the builders put the finishing touches to it, the company held parties for crew and contractors, even as the rest of the world was shutting down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
14/ Umair attempts to explain why Trump supporters think the way they do....
A President who suggests the answer to a global pandemic is…injecting disinfectant…drinking it…and that’s after he cut funding for the WHO. “Lockdown liberation” protesters who call the act of staying at home “slavery.” Government after government which disregarded warning after warning about said pandemic…to catastrophic effect.
When I look around the world today, I see shattering ignorance at work, like never before in our lifetimes.
15/ Sean Illing from Vox interviews Goerge Packer, who wrote the very disturbing article in the Atlantic last week....that you should have read!
Is the United States of America a failed state?
Looking at the American government’s response to the coronavirus, it seems that, at the very least, Americans have a failed government: This administration did not adequately assess the threat despite having at least two months to map out a plan, and it botched its response once the crisis was full-blown. We’ve paid a high price for that failure. The incompetence of Donald Trump’s administration has almost certainly cost lives.
Whether this counts as a “failed state” is a more slippery question.
16/ Not going to comment on this story....
Dozens of pastors across the Bible Belt have succumbed to coronavirusafter churches and televangelists played down the pandemic and actively encouraged churchgoers to flout self-distancing guidelines.
As many as 30 church leaders from the nation's largest African American Pentecostal denomination have now been confirmed to have died in the outbreak, as members defied public health warnings to avoid large gatherings to prevent transmitting the virus.
Deaths across the US in areas where the Church of God in Christ has a presence have reportedly stemmed from funerals and other meetings among clergy and other church staff held during the pandemic.
Todays Floriduh joke
"Lemon Pickers Needed" read the ad in the newspaper.
Ms. Sally Mulligan of Coral Springs, Florida, read it, and decided to apply for one of the jobs that most Americans are not willing to do.
She submitted her application for a job in a Florida lemon grove, but seemed far too qualified for the job.
She has a liberal arts degree from the University of Michigan, and a master's degree from Michigan State University.
For a number of years, she had worked as a social worker, and also as a school teacher.
The foreman studied her application, frowned, and said, "I see that you are well educated, and have an impressive resume.
"However, I have to ask you, have you had any actual experience in picking lemons?”
"Well, as a matter of fact, I have," she said. "I've been divorced three times, owned two Chryslers, voted twice for Bush, twice for Scott and once for Trump.”
She started work yesterday.
Todays Scottish joke
A Glasgow man phones a Dentist to enquire about the cost for a tooth extraction.
"£85 pounds for an extraction, sir" the dentist replied.
"£85 quid! Huv ye no'got anythin' cheaper?"
"That's the normal charge," said the dentist.
"Whit aboot if ye didnae use any anaesthetic?"
"That's unusual, sir, but I could do it and would knock £15 pounds off."
"Whit aboot if ye used one of your dentist trainees and still without any anaesthetic?"
"I can't guarantee their professionalism and it'll be painful. But the price could drop by £20 pounds."
"How aboot if ye make it a trainin' session, ave yer student do the extraction with the other students watchin' and learnin?"
"It'll be good for the students", mulled the dentist. "I'll charge you £5 pounds but it will be traumatic."
"Och, now yer talkin' laddie! It's a deal," said the Scotsman. "Can ye confirm an appointment for the wife next Tuesday then?"
Todays blonde joke
A man got on a bus with both of his front trouser pockets full of golf balls and sat down next to a beautiful blonde.
The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets.
Finally, after several curious glances from her, he announced,
The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets.
Finally, after several curious glances from her, he announced,
"It's golf balls."
The blonde continued to look at him for a very long time, thinking deeply about what he had said.
After several minutes, not being able to contain her curiosity any longer, she asked,
"Does it hurt as much as tennis elbow?"
The blonde continued to look at him for a very long time, thinking deeply about what he had said.
After several minutes, not being able to contain her curiosity any longer, she asked,
"Does it hurt as much as tennis elbow?"
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