Thursday, November 26, 2020

Now that’s absurd.

Man that crazy lady (Powell) got me to thinking about the lawsuit she filed in Georgia to decertify the election, based on nothing, and demanding it simply be handed over to Trump....

Someone pointed out that since she technically doesn't work for Trump, she might not have legal standing. And the suit is absurd anyway.

So I was wondering if I could do the same thing in florida to try and get a court to just hand it over to Biden based on "so many words" ...

I could wear a tinfoil hat and stand outside a landscape company and let something drip down my head, and get in the news cycle.

Maybe say I personally saw Fidel arriving in Miami and voting a bunch of times for Trump.

Tell me how that's different.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Plug-In Hybrids Under Attack By Environmentalists | CarBuzz

Hmmmm. I've been saying for some time that a hybrid is a kind of a hack. Yeah it gets you better gas mileage, but it's not really helpful in terms of environmental friendliness or going electric. And it's really a way for the car companies to take advantage of tax breaks.

Apparently I'm not alone in my thinking...

https://carbuzz.com/news/plug-in-hybrids-under-attack-by-environmentalists


Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

“They want to change our way of life”

During the election cycle 8 years ago, a guy a knew was adamant that Obama had to be defeated so we could return to our way of life. I really didn't understand what he meant. His point eluded me. Was it racist? Based on his policy?

So here we are in 2020 and the point has been coming into much sharper focus. In fact, there was a local non-partisan race with three contenders a few weeks ago.

One decided to go full-on maga. She tied herself to trump, to the republicans, and generally made it a partisan position.

She won, and people scratched their heads. How did she do it?

But a high school student who was working on one of the other campaigns astutely said "[she was saying] if you don't vote for me, your way of life will be taken away."

And that's exactly what the guy meant 8 years ago. And what many Trump supporters have decided all of this means.

It was/is a battle for the soul of this country. Braggadocio, American exceptionalism, white privilege (even if it's unstated), and fear are the way he won and why 70-something million people voted for him.

Listen to the words. Socialism=bad. BLM=bad. Foreigners=bad. Anything that strays from whatever form of religion they believe=bad. "Our" way of life has been twisted to mean anything that the wealthy want it to.

I mean, the sad reality is that trump and many of the other so-called leaders don't care about people, they only care about themselves. Think most of the most ardent supporters would ever get an invite to go to mar-a-lago? I suppose only if mar-a-lago was the name of a landscaping company.

And as for caring, gee as the G20 summit (which would have been hosted in DC if not for the pandemic) kicked off, trump was rage tweeting about the election again. And when the leaders met to talk covid, he went off to a tee time. Because he simply can't be bothered to govern or care about real world issues. It is all about him. And after all, that's the way it's been the last 3 11/12 years, so why start now?

Who's way of life? ...And people caught in the cult of personality still can't see it.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Stop the spread: wear a mask

I still can't believe that (a) our government sits idly by as the pandemic spreads and it does literally nothing to learn about it, achieve any sort of success in returning to something close to normalcy, and otherwise just promotes stupidity. And (b) that people as a result still refer to it as a hoax and won't wear a mask. One of the easiest things to do, for yourself and the good of the nation, is to mask up. And instead people give all sorts of reasons why they won't.

But here's the thing. Look around and see where things are maybe getting a little closer to normal and ask yourself why that is and why they haven't had any outbreaks attributed to them.

And I'm not talking about stupid things like restaurants opening. I'm talking about examples like these:

1. Air travel. The airlines know they have to fly in order to make money. So they gave it a go. Told everyone they have to wear a mask, and have been trying little things beyond that. They've even kicked people off flights for not wearing them. And no outbreaks directly tied to being on an airplane, as far as we can tell. What does that tell you?

2. TV production has kinda,sorta returned. There are new episodes of some shows and things are moving along. Again, money is the motivating factor. But the crew all wear masks, and as much as they can they have actors social distance, and they do covid screenings on the regular.

3. Disney World reopened in a limited capacity, enforcing 100% mask wearing. There are screenings for temperature. Plus some amount of social distancing makes this successful. There have been no reported outbreaks from cast or guest related to park going.

4. Yesterday, I was reading about a school district in the northeast that reopened. They are enforcing masks, and social distancing as much they can. But they have had some outbreaks. The upshot, though, is that they are rigorous about contact tracing and knowing how the outbreak started. And what did they find? Every outbreak was linked to sports or some situation where students gathered together after school hours - and nearly every case, they weren't wearing masks when around others.

Theres also a reminder that basketball bubble worked in the late summer because they isolated the entire NBA and played through the season. They even used some custom monitoring devices to learn something about possible spreads. Because everyone in direct contact was inside the bubble had been tested and anyone near the bubble wore masks, they avoided a spread. Sure, a bubble is mostly impractical in the real world. But we *learned* something from it that we can apply if we so choose. (The bubble was at disney world, so surely part of disneys success is based on learning).

Anyway the key is to try things to figure this out; to learn along the way. To in many cases let the money guide you. These are all industries where $$ are at stake, so they are finding a way.

Some smarts, maybe a little tech, some government investment, and a mask mandate would speed all of this up.

And for Pete's sake, take it seriously!

And in the meantime: wear a mask people!

Sunday, November 15, 2020

In case you wondered about this “hoax”

These two charts tell a bit of a story. One country takes it seriously, while one state does not.

Should we be concerned (hint: the answer is yes!)