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Open thread March 11, 2022

Angry Bear | March 11, 2022 6:39 am

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27 Comments
  • J.P. McJefferson says:
    March 11, 2022 at 7:57 am

    Somewhat lost in the Ukrainian news…(Interview with NPR)

    AG GARLAND on January 6: “…we begin with the cases that are right in front of us with overt actions…” Maybe you have not seen the 80+ FAKE ELECTORS, BLATANTLY GUILTY of serious crimes to overthrow the U.S. government that continue to run free.

    Article:

    Transcript:

    • run75441 says:
      March 12, 2022 at 10:57 am

      JP

      The problem here is Garland thinks he will be there forever. The Dems will control the House and Senate forever too. In a period of months, we have an election and there is a good chance, the Dems may lose both the House and the Senate. If someone thinks McConnell and McCarthy are interested in bringing justice to Republican instigated January 6th rioters and run the risk of incriminating themselves as well as other well-situated Republican politicians, just wow . . . Come November and if they win, the roadblock will become bigger and more difficult to get around.

      Garland needs to do more than just sentence the lackey-citizens who were too stupid to realize you can not pee and sh*t on the floor of Congress. It is too bad, the rioters did not stroll down to SCOTUS for a look-see at those black-robed Justices looking down at them who have given up helping the Giddeons of the world in favor of the Wainwrights. They even decide by secret ballot now.

      Need to get moving beyond locking up the citizen-fools.

      • J.P. McJefferson says:
        March 14, 2022 at 7:04 am

        Run,

        Yes, yes, all true… Plus it even gets more complicated to pursue legally once Trump announces his “real” 2024 campaign for President. He all but did it over the weekend in South Carolina claiming GOP will take back the House & Senate this year and the presidency in 2024. 

        There can be no higher priority than to defend free, fair, credible elections & preserve our hard-earned, treasured democracy. ​T​here ​is no reason ​to explain why the Attorney General is not pursuing this b&w legal case laid out by the J6 Committee?

  • Denis Drew says:
    March 11, 2022 at 12:30 pm

    HAVEN’T SEEN any discussion of this in the press — wonder if there is anything to it:

    Vladimir Putin ‘dying in agony from terminal cancer’ and pics show his pain, say sources

    “If you’re on these drugs, this gives you this face.

    “It reduces your immunity and makes you more vulnerable to Covid.

    “This man has been in complete isolation, quite extraordinary, won’t see anybody, stays miles away, tremendous pressures.”

    https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-dying-agony-terminal-26395464

     

    • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
      March 12, 2022 at 8:00 am

      Dennis,

      At the very least it is wishful thinking.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    March 12, 2022 at 9:51 am

    Remember when ‘Covid’ was a thing? Those were the days …

    Covid-19 news no longer dominates front pages

    CNN – March 11

    Remember “we are all in this together?” That’s what we were saying to each other two years ago this week. Media outlets were shifting into public service mode as the Covid-19 pandemic upended life in the United States. Broadcasters and health reporters were educating the country about terms like “social distancing” and “flatten the curve.” No one imagined that some pandemic-era interventions would still be in place two years later — no one, that is, except the public health experts who tried to warn us at the outset. …

    … most Covid updates have fallen off front pages and homepages due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The relaxing of Covid-era measures and the return to “normal,” whatever that means, has happened so gradually and variably that everyone has experienced it differently. If March 11, 2020 was the “start” date, there will never be an equivalent “end” date.

    As CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta wrote Friday, “we appear to be standing on the edge of the endemic phase of this global health crisis. For many, that’s the moment when we hope we can get back to our regular lives.” …

     

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      March 12, 2022 at 9:59 am

      But wait …

      Covid May Cause Changes in the Brain, New Study Finds

      NY Times – March 7

      Brain scans before and after infection showed more loss of gray matter and tissue damage, mostly in areas related to smell, in people who had Covid than in those who did not. 

      Covid-19 may cause greater loss of gray matter and tissue damage in the brain than naturally occurs in people who have not been infected with the virus, a large new study found.

      The study, published Monday in the journal Nature, is believed to be the first involving people who underwent brain scans both before they contracted Covid and months after. …

      SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure

       

       

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      March 12, 2022 at 5:04 pm

      After 2 Years of Pandemic Life, Turn Toward Normalcy Is a Shake-Up

      NY Times – March 12

      It was two years ago that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, and after nearly one million deaths across the United States, the virus is far from gone. Rates of new infections, while improving, are still higher now than the beginning of last summer.

      But after signs of progress and exhaustion, even cities and states with the strictest coronavirus precautions have been rolling them back. For millions of Americans who kept their masks on and socially distanced long after much of the country abandoned safety measures, it is a moment that has stirred relief, but also disappointment, frustration and queasy ambivalence. …

      • Fred C. Dobbs says:
        March 12, 2022 at 5:08 pm

        The new ‘Deltacron’ variant is rare, and similar to Omicron, experts say.

        NY Times – March 12

        In recent days, scientists have reported that a hybrid of the Omicron and Delta coronavirus variants has been popping up in several countries in Europe. …

         

        • Fred C. Dobbs says:
          March 12, 2022 at 5:25 pm

          Who knew?

          Deltacron: the story of the variant that wasn’t

          Nature – January 21

          (But that was seven weeks ago.)

           

      • coberly says:
        March 12, 2022 at 5:11 pm

        Dobbs

        no relief here (shaken but not stirred).

        the rolling bac of precautions is political [the people in their infinite wisdome demand it.]  suggesting there was never all that much difference between the Trumpists and the “science-lists” after all.

        Book: “”Uncontrolled Spread” by Scott Gottlieb…downplays the politics, does show more complications to fighting a pandemic than I knew about.

  • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
    March 12, 2022 at 11:27 am

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_politics_is_local

     

    The phrase “all politics is local” is commonly used in United States politics.[1] Variations of the phrase date back to 1932.[1] The former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O’Neill is most closely associated with this phrase, although he did not originate it.[1][2]

     

    Meaning and applicability

    Andrew Gelman argues that the “local” refers to “need[ing] local skills to win the primary election that gets them into their safe seat, and they need backroom political skills in the state legislature to keep their safe seats every 10 years.” Gelman also argues, citing data for elections since 1968, that politics is “less local than it used to be”.[3]

    Example

    Chris Matthews, former chief of staff to Tip O’Neill, wrote about the strategy adopted in the 1982 Congressional elections. O’Neill‘s seat was challenged by Massachusetts lawyer Frank McNamara, who had financed most of his campaign with money from oil interests in Oklahoma and Texas. O’Neill played up the connections in the media by passing out literature highlighting McNamara’s fundraising in Texas.

    Later during those elections, O’Neill introduced a $1-billion jobs bill to the table. House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel of Peoria, Illinois, opposed the bill, but O’Neill delivered an address broadcast in Peoria that showed how many infrastructure problems in Peoria would be fixed by the bill. Matthews wrote, “by hitting his rival where he lived, O’Neill translated a wholesale debate over national economic policy to the local, retail level”.[4]

     

    • coberly says:
      March 12, 2022 at 2:29 pm

      local: local newspaper.  non-local: internet. (not to mention billionaire radio/tv/newspaper chains).

      Tip O’Neill saved Social Security.  don’t see his like anymore.

      • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
        March 12, 2022 at 3:55 pm

        Coberly,

        Yes sir.

        On that local thing though, not all votes are cast according to local issues, but people interpret and relate to what they get from all media according to their own experiences.  So, in that respect then all politics are still local, despite the gaping partisan divide that Tip O’Neill straddled.

        https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-06-mn-9019-story.html

         

        “…But for the most part, he was a man of easygoing charm who was devoted to poker, golf, cigars and good whiskey. And he was probably the single most popular man on Capitol Hill.

        ‘Tip O’Neill has no enemies in this House,’ Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.) said after he ran against O’Neill for majority leader in 1972 but had to withdraw for lack of support.

         

        Yet for all his back-slapping geniality, O’Neill was a fiercely partisan Democrat. Franklin D. Roosevelt was his great hero and O’Neill remained a loyal New Deal disciple even when his brand of liberalism seemed to be going out of vogue…”

         

        • coberly says:
          March 12, 2022 at 4:59 pm

          Ron

          “even when it was going out of vogue.”  yep.  it used to be called character, or having principles.

          as for “local issues”… it always amazed me that the locals always (mostly) had the same opinions about everything.  we used to blame it on the worms they got from going barefoot.  of course we was always “yankees” or similar lowlifes who had no character or principles except money.

          [full disclosure:  I was born in the South and always championed the Southern Cause [before it became lost] until I found out what it was.]

          • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
            March 13, 2022 at 8:54 am

            Coberly,

            The down side of the fraternity that existed among Reagan, O’Neill, and Ted Kennedy was that it set in motion the force which lead to our existing healthcare debacle.  I avoid calling it a crisis which is generally associated with a more sudden death.  Financialization and globalization were boosted at the same time, although their roots were thirty years deeper.

            Followers mostly follow their noses, so avoid doing stuff they believe stinks.  One cannot successfully communicate with those that one considers beneath them.  Coming up as a son of the South from a median income household of parents that were originally rural raised themselves, then my cousins were among those barefoot hayseeds.  It never occurred to me at the time that I was smarter than them because we played ball in farm fields and pretend war in the woods, things they were better at than me.  As such, then I envied their lives more than they envied mine.  Also, some of them grew up to be smart themselves, one becoming a civil engineer and another the county sheriff.  However, even back then I could tell the difference between those that would grow up to have successful lives and the rest.  Probably all of us could see that, but it never served to separate us kids when we played together.

            I never championed the Southern Cause although I did like the Stars and Bars for purely decorative reasons and I respected the three great Southern generals Lee, Stewart, and Jackson, perhaps even a little more than Grant and Sherman because the Southern generals were very clever strategists.  Grant and Sherman were supremely effective with a cruder style.  Many family members served on both sides of my family which may have inspired my childhood study or military strategy going back to the Middle Ages.

            Take care, buddy.  Hopefully we had our last snowfall of the season yesterday.  I am tired of being housebound.  Covid was not much of a boredom issue for me since I have a lot of outdoors and a lot to do out there.

          • Fred C. Dobbs says:
            March 13, 2022 at 10:07 am

            I have a friend, originally a Texan, who seems to still be a ‘son of the South’ in many ways, although he claims otherwise. It seems if you come from ‘way down South’ you retain a variety of what to Northerners are very strange, unpleasant ideas & attitudes.

            And considerable pride in doing so. I still remember the discomfort I felt from spending several months in Georgia back in my Army days, when I first had close contact with ‘Southern gentlemen’.

          • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
            March 13, 2022 at 10:30 am

            Fred,

            Possibly there were some Southern gentlemen in my mom’s family, but they were dead before I was born.  The survivors were alcoholics and stock car race enthusiasts.  My hillbilly dad was not related to any Southern gentlemen that I know, but plenty of rednecks.

            My wife is from Enfield, CT.  She finds my childhood appetite for fried chicken feet as my reward for helping Aunt Minnie pluck the chickens that she had slaughtered with an axe both strange and unpleasant.  She will also not be present when I dress game or fish nor will she eat either as those behaviors are strange and unpleasant to her.  She will not camp either which in combination has greatly increased the cost of our room and board when I vacation at the coast.

          • coberly says:
            March 13, 2022 at 12:52 pm

            “better than me at things that mattered.”

            someting i knew without knowing it from  an early age.   on the other hand, some of the things that mattered were also things that i did not like very much.

            I  don’t know much about what Tip and Reagan and Kennedy were up to, except that when it cam down to it Tip stopped the enemies of SS in the first major battle of the SS wars.  and, oddly, got Reagan on board with it.  I think “financialization” may have been the snake in the garden.  Ultimately fatal, but always inevitable, and kind of attractive…to those that mattered.

            I think I “defended” the southern cause only because i knew i was born in the South..but I lived in Chicago, and knew nothing at all about the realities.  And Chicago was not such a nice place either. For the most part I don’t think the Southerners themselves know much about “the cause”  only that they were attacked and beaten by a stronger foe that they were “better than” in the way that everyone is “better than” their enemies.

            I am not sure that “successful” is a virtue, though at times neither do I think that “unsuccessful” is.

             

            As for the generals, I’d scratch Jeb off that list,  maybe add Longstreet on the Southern side and add George Thomas on the North.  Longstreet had enough sense to see that Pickett’s charge was going to be a disaster, though he may have had less imagination than Lee who may have outsmarted himself with secret plan.  But in fact I know nothing about strategy.  All of the books I have ever read about war never seem to talk about “strateg  Lee y”..at least not in a way I recognized it.  Someone once said “amateurs talk about strategy.  professionals talk about logistics.”

            Lee fought a good fight with what he had.  So did Grant. So, for that matter did Meade, who gets no credit for Gettysburg.  And even Lincoln’s first general…who was a fool personally, but fought…or refused to fight… the war he had considering his war aims, which I take to have been minimizing casualties in a war that was meaningless and would be over soon.

            As usual, don’t take anything I say seriously.

          • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
            March 13, 2022 at 2:38 pm

            Coberly,

            Generally agreed on anything significant given that words are only a scaffolding around the truth.  I.e., success may not be a virtue, but one cannot eat virtue nor find shelter in virtue and success provides a great respite from the stress of struggling to survive.

            Civil War logistics for the South worked for them when they were defending their homes, but that expedition to Gettysburg really was a mistake, all in the name in trying to shorten the war with a decisive attack against their enemy.  The South was out-manned and out-gunned, which can work when fighting defense but is a real killer when taken on the offensive.  Technically speaking that was their strategy – to fight at home – until their strategic blunder.  So, I was using the word strategy but was really referring to tactical battlefield execution with a broad scope.  That is the quasi-strategic repositioning of forces and flanking and so on.

  • coberly says:
    March 12, 2022 at 2:23 pm

    Dobbs

    I can certainly believe in the brain damage.  But I read someting else this week (sorrry, no links) that said half of adults in this country suffer from brain damage due to leaded gasoline before it was banned.

    it happens that i was in the university library (1960-ish) looking for something else one day when i came across a whole section of shelves full of scientific reports proving that lead was good for people.

    brain damage indeed.  (turns out the easiest part of the brain to damage is the part associated with moral (pro-social) behavior.)

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      March 13, 2022 at 10:00 am

      Much is being written & studied about the effects of ‘Long COVID’, the type that afflicts some people for many months and just won’t go away, which definitely involves brain damage. I recall reading reports early on about the disease that suggested it was attacking organs throughout the body in some people.

    • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
      March 13, 2022 at 10:39 am

      Coberly,

      The three leading causes of brain damage in the US are social media, conservative talk radio, and right wing news broadcasts.  Unfortunately, what passes as liberal media is only a little less malignant.  We are blessed on our side with far more people that follow the science than we have that actually know the science.  The idiot and the fool are each equally certain of themselves while being roughly equally incorrect.  The wise man is never that certain about anything that is complicated and anything that needs attention to solve its problems is complicated because if it were not complicated, then it would not need attention to solve its problems.

      • Fred C. Dobbs says:
        March 13, 2022 at 2:11 pm

        Seriously, a lack of ‘cognitive ability’ makes people susceptible to fake news apparently. Not too surprising, really.

        Vulnerability to Fake News

        Scientific American – Feb 2018

        …  a person’s cognitive ability reflects how well they can regulate the contents of working memory—their “mental workspace” for processing information. First proposed by the cognitive psychologists Lynn Hasher and Rose Zacks, this theory holds that some people are more prone to “mental clutter” than other people. In other words, some people are less able to discard (or “inhibit”) information from their working memory that is no longer relevant to the task at hand—or, as in the case of Nathalie, information that has been discredited. Research on cognitive aging indicates that, in adulthood, this ability declines considerably with advancing age, suggesting that older adults may also be especially vulnerable to fake news. Another reason why cognitive ability may predict vulnerability to fake news is that it correlates highly with education. Through education, people may develop meta-cognitive skills—strategies for monitoring and regulating one’s own thinking—that can be used to combat the effects of misinformation.  …  

         

        • Fred C. Dobbs says:
          March 13, 2022 at 2:15 pm

          Related…

          How Fake News Breaks Your Brain

          Smithsonian – June 2017

        • coberly says:
          March 13, 2022 at 3:41 pm

          dobbs

          yeah, education might tend to make people pay attention to meta-cognitive skills.  it can also make them narrow minded and arrogant.  in general i have found more intelligence among the uneducated than the educated.  not much in either case.  but the uneducated are used to having to make sense out of things that the educated have served to them on a platter.

          then the educated have a “world” presented to them in which their narrow skills work with efficiency.  while the uneducated have to cope with a world that is unregulated…except as much as they can create, or just inhabit, for themselves by tradition and choice of friends.

          • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
            March 14, 2022 at 7:48 am

            Coberly,

            Totally.  Theory of the leisure class versus the reality of ordinary life leaves an chasm that is rarely bridged.

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